By Dean Waters ’21 News Reporter
Walls. The Babylonians built impenetrable walls, forty feet tall, towering over foreign invaders. The Greek city-state of Athens was surrounded in its entirety by walls. And in the harsh winters of Russia, the walls around the gulags made escape impossible.
Now we see firsthand as history repeats itself, as within the ever sturdy walls of the Burgin Center for the Arts, there lies, sealed by electric lock, a treasure of priceless value. A grand piano owned by John Lennon and Yoko Ono.
The John Lennon piano separates itself from Mercersburg Academy’s other pianos by its unique history and sheer presence. It is quite the irony that the instrument with the most potential for beauty is locked up in a prison, often dormant in darkness. The keys of the piano can open a door to the soul, unlocking within one the drive for self-expression and love for music. While there are other pianos in the Burgin Center, it is unfortunate that when it comes to playing piano behind the door of rehearsal room 1—those same keys just don’t suffice.
To Mercersburg Academy, the piano holds a certain significance beyond its origin to Lennon. It is the spot of pilgrimage for many pianists, the hidden gem in the Burgin, and the footprint of a legend. Imagine if the piano were more accessible to the student body. A day in the life of that piano should involve mellifluously generating sweet melodies; unfortunately, the process of having to seek a specific faculty member to unlock the room is too big a burden on the individual and the teacher, thus limiting this treasure’s accessibility.
Being a piano player, I have made just once the long and winding pilgrimage to the room and performed on the piano itself. Though I am not one to wallow in matters of the spiritual, I cannot deny a surge of the psyche as my fingers graced the very keys once played by the Dreamer. John Lennon once said “We’ve got this gift of love, but love is like a precious plant. You can’t just accept it and leave it in the cupboard or just think it’s going to get on by itself. You’ve got to keep watering it. You’ve got to really look after it and nurture it.” This is ever applicable to the piano.
This piano is more than just a keepsake or a trophy. It is an instrument of limitless beauty, a blackbird singing in the dead of night. Its purpose is to create music, not to waste away in the dark. To that end, I push for a more accessible Lennon piano.