It is a large white grand piano that sits in the lobby of a hotel in Ukraine, in Kharkiv, the second largest city in the country, which has been pockmarked for a few days by the fire of the Russian army. In this hotel are found residents who have come to take refuge because they do not have a cellar in their building, people from passages stuck there by the suddenness of events, and journalists, like Whitney Leaming. She works for the washington post and while sending her article through the hubbub of the hotel lobby, she heard a young pianist take up the keyboard.
The teenager sat down at the piano to play this piece written by composer Philip Glass. The journalist films him, we don’t see his face, but gradually we hear the hubbub disappear. Everyone listens, carried by this melancholic melody. The journalist does not have time to ask the young man his name, she publishes the video on her Twitter and Instagram accounts then leaves the hotel to go back to reporting. But in a few minutes, the extract is listened to, shared, commented on, liked hundreds of thousands of times, and seen nearly 10 million times. Including by the artist, Philip Glass, who told the washington post to be completely overwhelmed to hear his track, the soundtrack of a series, Tales from the Loop, be played in this real context, there, in the middle of the war, under the bombs.
I’m hunker-down with some truly amazing people and some secret musicians. I was listening to some classical music on my phone to decompress, this live concert is much better. pic.twitter.com/YtV6dwEILU
— Whitney Leaming (@wleaming) February 27, 2022
There was this boy, and then there were other pianists, who followed one another on the keyboard of this grand white piano, to evacuate the stress, the tension, to gain a sound other than that of the sirens. Watching the videos, you would almost forget the context, the fact that in Kharkiv, there is less and less food, medicine, help, resources, but there is still this piano, and the comfort it carries for those who play it, and for those who listen, there and everywhere else in the world thanks to the videos. A consolation, if any in time of war, which does not stop the bombs but which suspends time, if only for a few seconds.