12 Pianos A-Playing Outdoors for Public at SF Botanical Garden

How often do you come across a piano out in a garden with someone sitting at it, playing as if it’s Carnegie Hall? Well, not often I expect. Maybe never. But here in San Francisco you can wander the SF Botanical Gardens in Golden Gate Park, following your ears and encounter not one, but twelve pianos secreted among the Garden’s 55 acres of lawns, trees, flora and waterway overlooks. It’s called Flower Piano.

The pianos are out au natural from July 13th to the 24th—open, of course, to all visitors to the Gardens. The music/flower event is organized by Sunset Piano’s Public Piano Project, now in its third year. Amazingly, you can also sit down and play at any of the pianos—as long as someone else is not playing. So plunk out Chopsticks or perform a gorgeous Chopin or George Winston.

Noteworthy players will be performing, including members of the San Francisco Symphony Chorus Group and alumni from the Symphony’s Youth Orchestra, and members of the Oakland School for the Arts and the Ruth Asawa San Francisco School of the Arts. There will also be sing-alongs.