Two hand-painted pianos will begin a summer stay in Cal Anderson and Volunteer Park Thursday night in a promotion to celebrate the region’s great public spaces with the sometimes surreal placement of the bulky musical instruments in the middle of Seattle city parks. Pianos in the Park has returned. Tubas in the parks just didn’t have the same ring to it:

The Pianos in the Parks program, made possible by Laird Norton Wealth Management, encourages the discovery of parks through music and art by placing one-of-a-kind, artist-designed upright and grand pianos in parks and open spaces across Bellevue, Kirkland, Mercer Island, Seattle and other parts of King County. All pianos are made available for free public use and music exploration through Aug. 16.

Following a Thursday kick-off event at Lake Union Park, the pianos will be moved to their new homes:

• Bellevue – Ashwood Plaza (Bellevue Regional Library), Bellevue Botanical Gardens and Downtown Park
• Kirkland – Marina Park
• Mercer Island – Luther Burbank Park and Mercerdale Park
• Redmond – Marymoor Park 
• Seattle – Ballard Commons (Ballard), Jefferson Park (Beacon Hill), Cal Anderson Park and Volunteer Park(Capitol Hill), Green Lake Park (Green Lake), Magnuson Park (Sand Point), Rainier Beach Plaza (Rainier Valley), Seacrest Park/Alki (West Seattle) and Steve Cox Memorial Park (White Center), as well as downtown Seattle neighborhood parks and open spaces including Occidental Square (Pioneer Square), Denny Park and Lake Union Park (South Lake Union) and Seattle Center (Uptown).
• Woodinville – Sammamish River Trail

The Capitol Hill pianos are expected to be in place by Thursday night.

Completed the piano last night #pianosintheparks #music #painting pic.twitter.com/u9X5FCWPRC

— C. Covey (@TimelessTomes) July 14, 2015

All 22 previously owned pianos are procured, repaired, tuned, transported and maintained by Classic Pianos and hand-painted and “artistically enhanced” by students, faculty and alumni artists of Capitol Hill’s Gage Academy of Art, according to an announcement of this year’s installations.

“When George Seurat painted his colorful landscape of a Paris crowd enjoying a summer afternoon on the Seine, it was also a celebration of something brand new – open space in the big city,” Gary Faigin, artistic director at Gage, is quoted as saying in the announcement.

The placement at Cal Anderson is another small effort to keep the park active as summer has again filled areas of the public space with campsites and refuse. The current condition of Cal Anderson created a swell of CHS comments on our recent District 3 candidate survey post in response to the candidate statements on homelessness in the area. We’ll have more on what is — and isn’t — being done to try to address the issues soon.

As with last year, there is a video contest for performances involving the pianos:

Throughout the month, people of all skill levels and musical persuasions are also invited to enter a Pianos in the Parks video contest for a chance to perform as part of the Seattle Center & KEXP Present Concerts at the Mural at 5:15 p.m. on Friday, Aug. 21. Entrants simply need to upload a video of their performance of original or public domain music using one of the participating pianos to the Pianos in the Parks website, www.pianosintheparks.com beginning today.

The pianos will also again be sold to the highest bidders via an online auction.

Last year, Capitol Hill’s two major parks also played host to the pianos — at varying levels of success. Tuning problems and wear occasionally put the Cal Anderson piano down for the count, but the Volunteer Park installation produced some beautiful music.