Decorating the piano was one of our first public art volunteer efforts, and had met with excellent reception. Noticing the piano’s absence, receiving an email that the she was “damaged during construction”, taking off Rita’s artwork at Cemetery lot, presenting at Town Council questioning what happened: that all occurred in a few days time.

TRANSCRIPT:

‘ll start with, does anyone know where the piano is that Stella Rose replaced?

Am I allowed to ask questions?

Mayor Leslie Hager-Smith:  You are allowed to ask the questions but we don’t have to answer. Basically we don’t go back and forth.

Okay does anyone know where the piano that Stella Rose replaced, I do because I’m the caretaker.  I was assigned that job.   That piano is in the office hallway where I work.   It was going to be thrown in the dump, I saved it.  I asked the committee for a bit of funding perhaps, to get it tuned.  That’s the only thing that was wrong with it the piano.  It still rests there.

You don’t know where it is and you run a downtown piano project,  right?

Where’s the Stella Rose piano?  It’s smashed in Cemetery lot is where it is.   And in my belief with no report,  Rita’s brother owns a renovating company NRV Renovators,  he’s a master builder, he showed up today and assess the damage.  I’m a professional piano player and have owned 30 pianos throughout my life, I assessed the damage and I do not believe that that piano was damaged on Draper Block.

Okay that’s that’s a very traversed block, I have many buddies on that block, a piano is a loud thing, if a piano gets broken it’ll be reported in a minute to me.   It wil.l   People know how much I love that piano, I have many piano playing friends. 

To throw the workers under the bus maybe for this, who did an excellent job with that rag tag construction that went on there, with cutting stone with those not even privacy fences, your town employees did an amazing job not getting injured or injuring people, and to think that you’re going to blame them for breaking the piano, with all the Care with all those bulldozers that weighed over two tons there, to say that they broke the piano,

I have a hard time believing that they did and I’d like to see the report I surely would.

What kind of construction is run Mr manager, where you don’t have a report?  If Shire’s Incorporated had done this, who we called by the way, after we called the dump, trying to find it, because you didn’t even tell the off the artist who painted the Local Jam! where it was.   

If there’s any reason here, and I know the reason by the way, and you do too, it’s because you didn’t like the content.  It’s because you thought the Greenhouse was an advertisement.  It’s because you misread Stella Rose for Steel Rose okay.   Well you know why the piano is not there you’ve been wanting it long gone.  

The piano on Creekmore, you can’t even play it.  The  “downtown piano” at the Moss Gallery, that’s a lie.   That’s not a public piano.   You would know that they allow me to play it, because I’m a piano player, right, and I make a recording there for  people to watch and stuff.   They don’t allow people to come in there and play it, don’t claim it!

I invite anybody to go to the Creekmore building,it’s a disgrace. O

Mayor –  Okay thank you that is a minute past your time.  

Thank for your time we’ll see you in two weeks with you won’t believe the photos.

You are welcome to come during any citizen comments period and we did receive your 5:00 email and others.

In Spring 2023, we teamed up with the Downtown Revitalization Committee to replace an outdoor piano. — This a growing post as the cultivation of the Draper Pedestrian Block continues… Reverse Chronological Order.

Phase I

Reinvigorating our efforts to document, promote, produce and elevate Blacksburg’s street art scene, we are a part of the team handling the transplanting and the embellishing of the replacement piano and the repurposing of the original.

Late Night Act of Mayhem

This is how someone chose to express their emotions in the witching boozy hours of the night in the first week in the neighborhood for the transplant. .

[A reader emailed us this article which is apropos]: Japan street piano confiscated after public ‘break rules’

Anonymous Neighborhood Watch:

Piano was placed back upright by good samaritan (s?) sometime the same morning.

Tuning Team: First Session 4-26-2023

The Painting of the Piano is IN PROGRESS

Here are some shots of the ongoing process.

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