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‘Free Keys Project’ Comes to Madison

Summer in the center of Madison is already postcard-perfect, but now the experience of summer days downtown is going to come with a little music, too. Through the Free Keys Project, a community group is placing three pianos in visible areas of downtown Madison for residents to come and play.

Madison resident Carly Callahan and Branford’s Greg Nobile started the project as a private initiative to place pianos in public spaces in the towns of Madison, Branford, and Guilford.

Callahan said the project has collected eight pianos that are being painted by local artists before being set out to the respective towns. The plan is to place all of the pianos in the towns this Thursday, June 21 to correspond with Connecticut Make Music Day across the state.

“Our timeline is that these would be picked up at 6 p.m. on Wednesday evening and delivered to their new homes for the duration of the summer tourist season, ending in the beginning of September, and in September, the pianos will be donated to schools, community organizations, or whomever else might be interested in having one of them in residence,” she said.

The plan is to place one piano under the marquee at the movie theater, one at Creations, and one at Willow and Birch on Wall Street. First Selectman Tom Banisch said the town is hoping for one more.

“We are trying to get a fourth one and we wanted to put it down at the beach,” he said.

The Free Keys Project will maintain the pianos all summer long.

“We are going to have a selection of sheet music in all of the piano benches and create a lending library so that people can bring music with them and take some home if they like,” she said. “We also have an intern who is dedicated to this project and will be checking the pianos for vandalism and we will fix that if it becomes an issues and our tuner will also be monitoring those.”

Callahan said the pianos have been coated with a sealant in the case of bad weather, but noted that each piano will come with a cover attached to the back of the instrument and she’s hopeful that residents passing by will take the initiative.

“This is a community piano, so we are asking people when it starts to rain to kindly cover the piano up, but we understand that is not necessarily going to happen all of the time so we have sealed the pianos and used a type of paint that will allow for as much vitality in an outdoor condition as possible,” she said.

“I think the idea is great,” Banisch said. “I think it is really cool, especially with summer coming up because I go downtown sometimes during the week at night when hardly any stores are open any more and you see the number of people who are still down there anyways and what is there to do? If we have something like this, I think it will be a draw for people to come downtown. Even if you are just sitting around at Willoughby’s, somebody will be playing music nearby.”