Low golden sun floods a boardwalk as a teenager plays a pastel sea-creature piano. The last song of the day.

A piano appearson a street corner.

Since 2009 we have placed artist-painted pianos in public spaces across the Lower Mainland. Anyone can play them, and they are free for everyone.

Find the pianosGet involved
Grouse MountainMain & HastingsGranville IslandSpanish BanksLonsdale QuayRiver MarketMaple RidgeSquamishScience WorldChinatown

We are The Public Piano Project, a volunteer-led nonprofit that has been putting pianos where pianos don't belong since 2009.

Music and art for everyone, whatever your background, age, or ability. Every piano below was donated, repaired, painted by a community artist, and rolled out onto a street. This is how one is born.

A freshly primed all-white upright waits in a parking-lot Paint Zone, a blank canvas before the artists arrive.

Act I · The canvas

It starts with a piano nobody wanted.

A donated upright, hauled out of a living room, repaired and primed white in a parking-lot paint zone. Right now it's silent. It won't stay that way.

A splatter-painted upright asks WHAT INSPIRES YOU? in big white letters, covered in handwritten answers.

Act II · The paint

Artists turn it into a landmark.

Community artists cover every inch: schoolkids, nonprofits, painters, neighbours. This one asks the street a question, and the street keeps writing back.

A lone player at an upright in the middle of a car-free Main Street, festival tents and mountains down the avenue.

Act III · The street

Then we roll it into the middle of your life.

Mountaintops, beaches, piers, and the middle of a car-free Main Street. Wherever the city gathers, a piano is waiting with the lid up.

An elderly man in a denim jacket plays a doodle-covered upright on a Chinatown sidewalk as a trolley bus rolls past.

Act IV · Everyone

And the street does the rest.

No tickets, no stage, no dress code. A man on his way home sits down, and for three minutes the sidewalk belongs to him and to everyone listening.

“I like pianos that are out of tune, old books with poems written on margins, and dreamers who don't fit in this world.”
Vlada Mars, a courageous local piano teacher, performer, and dreamer

Where the pianos have lived

From the Grouse Mountain summit to the sand at Spanish Banks, here are a few of the stages we have built since 2009. Tap any photo to enlarge it.

How we choose locations →

Play your part

The Public Piano Project belongs to all of us. Six ways in:

Design a piano

Artists and communities: a public canvas that plays music.

Sponsor a location

Bring a piano to your neighbourhood. The real cost sheet is included.

Volunteer

Movers, tuners, stewards, photographers. There's a bench for you.

Donate your piano

Give a good instrument a second life in public.

Sign the petition

Tell your city that street pianos matter.

Share your story

What happened when you found the piano?

Your turn. Play something.

Every project page ends with a form. This one ends with a piano.

Tap the keys, or play from your keyboard: A through ;, with black keys on W E T Y U O P.

Keep the music on the streetRead our story