On a sunny October afternoon, a faint melody emerges from a stand of trees just beyond the Fine Arts Building and within hearing distance of the Performing Arts and Humanities Building. We leave the paved pathway and follow our ears up the hill to find first-year music education student Luke Heichlinger leaning into the keys of a lone piano, playing what turns out to be “Ein Heldenleben” (“A Hero’s Life”) by Richard Strauss.
Erik Bhattacharyya is one of many UMBC students who have discovered and enjoyed the Piano Garden. Here, the biochemistry
and molecular biology and biological sciences junior is playing a piece by Ludovico Einaudi called “Nuvole Bianche.”
“I always look for a practice room with a window, but sometimes I can’t get one,” he says, explaining that he and his friend, Hannah, originally joked that the piano in the woods might be a hallucination. Thankfully, it wasn’t—so they came back the next day prepared with sheet music.
Installed just days before, “Piano Garden” is the latest “performance” of New Zealand-born composer Annea Lockwood’s ever-growing outdoor series of “Piano Transplants” compositions in which, since 1969, defunct pianos are burned, submerged in water, or—as is the case at UMBC— left to be taken over by trees and plant life. In the days and weeks following the installation at UMBC, the unofficial path to the piano became well-worn as students like Heichlinger brought their best tunes, additional instruments, and voices, and performed—very often—just for themselves.
Lockwood, later, visited campus as part of the annual Livewire music festival and listened while Linehan Artist Scholar and piano performance major Ida Dierker improvised in the woods for all to enjoy.
“UMBC has all these beautiful outdoor spaces,” says Linda Dusman, Livewire director, professor, and longtime Lockwood fan. “Stumbling upon a piano in the woods…kind of wakes you up to the experience of your environment. And also helps you remember what a piano does: that music can wake you up to the moment, even if you’re not directly hearing it.”
On the day we found Heichlinger, we learn he purposefully chose a romantic era composition that might fit in well with his surroundings. The dappled shadows flitted across the keyboard as he played.
“This is a really nice setting,” he said. “Nature and music go together so well, and this is the perfect example of that.”
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