These Ivories Will Tickle Your Fancy

While reading some stories associated with Saturday's post about New York's pianos-for-the-public art project, I ran across a couple of other items that also involved pianos in unusual places, in the same location and both with heartwarming results.

The location in question is the Mayo Clinic, and the first one that caught my attention was this adorable older couple who tag-teamed on the piano in the Mayo's waiting area:



The couple are Fran and Mario Cowan; they've been married for 62 years. (Not sure of her age, but he turned 90 a few months before this 2008 video.)

And here's 15-year-old Alex Walton-Creutz playing an original composition on the same piano:



Alex, whose caretaker great-aunt is a regular Mayo patient, has been playing at the Mayo since he was just eight years old. (More on Alex here.)

Music certainly has a special power to uplift the human spirit, and these performers, in different places in life but the same physical location, are shining examples of this power. (What a privilege it is to teach music; who knows how the sparks lit today might manifest themselves in the future?)