Residents Giving Back
Have You Heard The Music? By Katherine Gillen, SRVHS and Lauren Torchiana, SRVHS
Background Lauren Torchiana and Katherine Gillen are cousins that have grown up together, and being just one year apart, have always shared similar interests and activities. Lauren is a junior and Katherine a senior at SRVHS, and they couldn’t wait to be able to better their community and bring a project that involved both music and art to their town. Both started piano lessons at the same time when they were young and shared a love for playing together. Two years ago on respective trips to Portland and San Diego during the same week, they both stumbled upon public pianos that were refurbished, painted, and placed on street corners, walking paths, public squares, or other locations with heavy foot traffic. The girls shared their discovery with each other and found this random coincidence as a sign to bring the idea of public pianos to their hometown of Danville. After they returned home they immediately formulated a plan to approach the town of Danville.
Katherine Gillen and Lauren Torchiana in front of one of their musical installations.
The Results After two successful summers of public pianos in Danville, Lauren and Katherine hold great pride in this project and love to Bringing the Idea to Danville admire their work when passing by any of Lauren and Katherine emailed representatives the pianos. The four girls, Katherine, Lauren, from the Town of Danville asking for a Kelly, and Grace, were all honored to receive meeting to propose bringing public pianos the Award of Merit at the 37th Annual to Danville, and everyone loved the idea and Mayors Installation by The Danville Town insisted they start right away. With the help of Council in December of 2018. The pianos Jessica Wallner, Program Supervisor, Henry have also been featured in multiple issues Perezalonso, Recreation, Arts & Community of local newspapers. This project had such Services Director, Christian Mejia, former These pianos were loved and well used by a positive response from the community and Performing Arts Program Coordinator, Leah the whole community all summer long. it reminds the girls of how lucky they are to Madonich, Program Supervisor for Adults have the ability to share their love for art and music within their and Seniors, and others, the process began in the beginning hometown. of Summer 2018. These individuals helped with acquiring the pianos to be refurbished, finding locations to work on them, and overall helping the process go smoothly. The Process Lauren and Katherine secured two pianos through local donations and gathered all of the necessary supplies for the project. The girls started by prepping the pianos, through hours of sanding, prepping, and painting base coats. Next, they called in two local artists and good friends to help, Kelly Anderson (a senior at SRVHS) and Grace McClure (a junior at MVHS) to design and paint the pianos. They all worked together to brainstorm the designs, and the two artists collaborated to bring the artwork to life. The first round of pianos was completed for the summer of 2018, and then the process began again for the summer of 2019, bringing two more pianos to the streets of Danville.
Lauren, Katherine, Kelly Anderson, and Grace McClure collaborated on two new pianos for 2019, bringing the total to four pianos throughout town.
DANVILLE LIVING 11
