Janis St. Louis, the founder of the Piano in the Park program, looks on while Tristan Brunet-Dupont, 22, of Montreal, plays only minutes after the piano was installed in Gyro Park on Monday afternoon. There will be an official opening ceremony for the Piano in the program Sunday at 2 p.m. (Keith Lacey Photo).
You know when you’ve come up with a good idea when people start responding almost immediately.
That’s exactly what happened Monday afternoon when a donated piano was installed near the concession stand in Gyro Park in downtown Osoyoos.
The brainchild for the Piano in the Park program was Janis St. Louis, one of the three founders of the popular Music in the Park concert series that has attracted so many music fans to the Gyro Park bandshell during its inaugural season last summer.
On Monday, volunteers helped anchor the piano –which was donated by the Turnbull family in Osoyoos – to a concrete slab near the concession stand.
Within seconds, several musicians or aspiring musicians had gathered around the musical instrument, including Tristan Brunet-Dupont, 22, from Montreal.
Brunet-Dupont is an accomplished pianist and he was all smiles as he stepped behind the ivory keys and started belting out tunes in the blazing Okanagan heat.
St. Louis said she got the idea to put together the Piano in the Park program here in Osoyoos after her niece Samara St. Louis was visiting Kelowna last summer.
“My niece was visiting last summer and was taking a walk in the park in Kelowna and noticed they had a public piano and how popular it was,” she said. “I checked things out and discovered they have several of them in parks in Kelowna and right away I thought about putting something together to try and get one in Osoyoos.”
She is friends with Bonnie Turnbull and her family and they generously donated an old piano they had owned at their Osoyoos home for many years, said Turnbull.
She then started contacting local businesses and Home Hardware generously donated some paint and the Osoyoos Home Building Centre donated the wood and parts to build a protective case for the piano, said St. Louis.
Her husband Marcel and a couple of his buddies spent all day Monday putting together the wooden case that will protect the piano from the elements – and anyone thinking about vandalizing the piano, she said.
She contacted the Town of Osoyos and found out there weren’t any serious issues over liability and insurance and has organized an official opening ceremony to unveil the Piano in the Park program this Sunday at 2 p.m.
An experienced piano tuner from Naramata has volunteered to make the trip to Osoyoos to professionally tune the instrument and anyone with any talent playing the piano will be able to play a tune or two for the rest of the summer and years to come, said St. Louis.
“There are a lot of other cities and communities in Canada who have introduced these public pianos and they have been a huge hit wherever they have been introduced,” she said. “I think this will be another way to get people to our beautiful downtown park and another way to allow people to enjoy themselves.”
The amount of community spirit involved in making this all happen so fast has been remarkable, said St. Louis.
St. Louis said she and her partners are looking forward to the Music in the Park concert series for 2016, with the first concert set for a couple of weeks. Her hope is to keep the piano in Gyro Park until the fall and then have it shipped over to the Sonora Community Centre, where it will also be available to members of the public.
KEITH LACEY
Osoyoos Times
