PIANOTHON ON A PELICAN

The morning of Tuesday 16th April 2019

On a street in central London, location to be announced

“Our house is on fire” says Greta Thunberg, the schoolgirl who has inspired tens of thousands of her peers around the world to bravely attend school strikes and demand that their governments respond adequately to the climate and ecological emergency.

This is a call to pianists to match their bravery and participate in a coordinated, cultural response to the emergency and Extinction Rebellion this April.

“Climate change is now reaching the end-game… The issue is the very survival of our civilisation.” says Prof Hans Joachim Schellnhuber, for 20 years the Head of Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, Senior Advisor to Pope Francis, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and the EU.

The UN says “rapid, far-reaching and unprecedented changes in all aspects of society” is needed by 2030 if we are to have a chance at keeping our planet habitable (in the IPCC 1.5 Special Report published October 2018).

The problem is we are not on track.

PIANOTHON ON A PELICAN

"The facts about our ecological crisis are incontrovertible. We must take action" say notable leaders including previous Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams.

So what can we pianists do? We can show that we care.

ClimateKeys invites pianists to join a Pianothon that will be performed on a piano situated on a pelican crossing in a London street (location to be announced) on the morning of Tuesday April 16th.

Our collective performance will add to other cultural activities taking place on London streets over the same period, designed to halt parts of London, focus attention on the Emergency and demand change from the government. Together, these activities will symbolically illustrate what is needed; to bring about change we need to halt our present course leading us towards an uninhabitable planet.

Piano teachers - bring your students and piano students - bring your teachers! Music college students, bring your professors! Recording artists, bring your colleagues! Join in, whatever your musical style and level. Let's play our hearts out in the heart of the capital and with that, demand that our elected leaders step up response.

Please register your interest to lola@climatekeys.com

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ABOUT THE CREATORS: ClimateKeys is a global initiative with a no-fly policy that has to date triggered over 60 events in 13 countries in which musicians and climate change experts collaborate to lead discussion on action on climate change. ClimateKeys is proud to support the aims of Extinction Rebellion and its mass peaceful civil action commencing on 15th April with two specially created performances; ‘Pianothon on a Pelican’ and ‘Sounding Twelve Years’.

ABOUT THE EMERGENCY: 2019 is arguably our last chance to drive policy and culture change so as to achieve the ambitious targets set out in the UN’s IPCC 2018 report which describes the enormous harm that anything above a 1.5°C rise in global temperature would cause. It told us that limiting to 1.5°C may still be possible yet requires “rapid, far-reaching and unprecedented changes in all aspects of society”. The problem though: we’re not on track. Carbon emissions haven’t stopped rising and temperatures are heading towards 3°C. If we continue on our current course, future changes in climate could be dramatically abrupt and irreversible, seeing mass migrations, crop failures and unprecedented disasters. This is already putting pressures on the ecology, with 200 species going extinct every day due to habitat loss as well as change in climate. A 2018 study of British mammals found that 1 in 5 could be extinct within a decade. It’s time to increase ways to shift the global narrative and generate the necessary political will.