MY URBAN PIANO Diary 3
Preparations for Episode 2: HEARTLAND
The second city of MY URBAN PIANO video series is Esch/Alzette in Luxembourg. Since it is our plan to visit 12 European Capitals of Culture, Esch is somehow an exception. It is not a European Capital of Culture, or at least not yet, as they are candidating for the title in 2022. I was raised in Schifflange, the neighbor village of Esch, where I went to the Lycée de Garçons and to the Conservatoire de Musique Esch-sur-Alzette. I treasure many important and beautiful memories from my youth in Esch, and therefore I fully support their candidature and want to express my attachment with a special piece composed for Esch and a corresponding music video. The composition is slower and more introvert than Train of Dreams. It is a touching ballad about the beauty of Esch and the feelings I associate with the city.
I call this composition ‘Heartland’. It’s episode 2 of MY URBAN PIANO, and it will be released on 27th June 2017.
My dear friend Julie Schroell (we got to know each other in Esch twenty years ago) will direct the music video, together with her colleague and friend Martine Glod. They wrote a beautiful script together, and although my visual imagination is not that great, I feel that this clip is going to be something very special. Our mutual friend Brigitte Urhausen is going to play the lead character. She is a fantastic actress, and I consider myself very lucky that she agreed to be a part of MY URBAN PIANO and Heartland. Raphael Gindt, a young street artist prodigy, has designed the piano (sponsored by Pianohaus Hübner) to match the region of Esch which is called ‘Minett’ and is known for its red earth and its steel industry.
The piano is really unique and looks gorgeous. We filmed two time lapses of the transformation process:
Time lapse no. 1:
Time lapse no. 2:
(you’ll have to view this one on instagram.com since it contains more pics)
Over the last couple of weeks I published several posts on my social media channels. I would like to include the most interesting ones here.
Location scouting in Esch
A beautiful vintage car
We’ll also have a little gem in the next clip: a beautiful antique car (marque Goliath!), kindly provided by the fine folks over at Zylinderhaus. In this little clip, you’ll see Goliath and you’ll hear the first excerpt of Heartland:
And finally, here are two posts that capture spontaneous improvisations on the sidewalk during the designing of the piano.
Music on the sidewalk
Piano donation
After the video shooting we will donate this wonderful piano to the Kulturfabrik in Esch, where I played my first concert with a program containing only my own piano works in 1999.
Pianist and composer David Ianni from Luxembourg has become well-known for his project MY URBAN PIANO: a series of music videos is produced in different European Capitals of Culture. An original composition is dedicated to each city, performed on an artistically designed piano. Each piano is donated. Join the journey and follow David on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and sign up for his newsletter. Each video plus making of material is published to David’s YouTube channel. For more information, please visit www.davidianni.com.
