'Play Me I'm Yours' pianos find second homes

If they didn't spend too much time in the rain over the last six weeks, the pianos from the Play Me I'm Yours public art project will be put to good use.

Of the 35 pianos used for the project, about 15 have already found a second home at schools, arts centers and other organizations around Cincinnati. They will be used for educational and community arts-oriented programs, Cincinnati Public Radio's vice president for Marketing Chris Phelps said.

The remainder of the pianos were collected this weekend and their condition will be assessed to see if they are still in usable shape.

"Some of them had better cover than others," Phelps said. "The two that were on Fountain Square were there for six weeks and they're in bad shape right now, but other pianos were on a porch or sheltered a little bit more and those are the ones that still can be used."

All eight of the arts centers that received pianos will keep them to be used in educational programs, or to remain a permanent public art fixture.

Chatfield College's Findlay Market campus, which recently doubled its enrollment, added a vocal music class after the expansion. They couldn't afford a piano, and students were singing along to a small CD player.  Now their students, ranging in age from 20 to 50, will have musical accompaniment to their singing.

"The students are very excited because they've never been exposed to anything like that," social outreach and special events coordinator Britney Grimmelsman said.

Chatfield College offers two year associates degrees at one campus in Findlay market and another in Brown County. Many of their students are single moms or low-income residents of Over-the-Rhine.

The Drake Rehabilitation Center has received another piano, as well as the Oyler School in Lower Price Hill, one of many elementary schools who have struggled to provide arts and music education in the midst of funding cuts.

The Madisonville Arts Center, the Kennedy Heights Arts Center, the Clifton Cultural Arts Center, the Fitton Center for the Arts, the Oxford Community Arts Center, the Sharonville Arts Center and The Wyoming Arts Center all hosted pianos during the project, and will keep them as well.

Writer: Henry Sweets
Photography by Scott Beseler.