When Michael "Zoo" Zeoli heard about pianos set up around New York City for an art installation, he knew what he had to do: go there and play them.
"I was driving around town listening to NPR," Zeoli said. "They were doing a story, and I didn't know about those pianos. It captured me."
Zeoli, a UNC School of the Arts alumnus, is the leader of Winston-Salem pop trio Joe Next Door. He is also a tutor who teaches about 50 private students in town.
The installation, "Play Me, I'm Yours," was conceived by British artist Luke Jerram and presented in New York by Sing For Hope. In the project, 60 pianos were installed around New York -- in public parks, on streets and plazas -- for several weeks in June and early July, allowing passersby to stop and tickle the ivories. Jerram has been touring with the exhibition since 2008, setting it up in 11 cities so far.
"I'm a piano guy. I've just devoted my life to them," Zeoli said. "This was taking the piano somewhere it doesn't go normally, and he was able to pull off so many of them.
"The mechanics of it were huge.… I was like, I want to go play those pianos."
By the time he heard about the piano installation, there were only two weeks left.
"I couldn't afford to cancel lessons from my livelihood to go to New York. It had to be on a weekend," he said.
He told the parents of his students about his plans, and some of them offered donations toward his gas money.
"I ended up with almost $200 in donations to go," he said, "and I connected with a long-lost cousin up near New York so we'd have a place to stay, and we jumped in the car."
On July 3, Zeoli, his wife, Jamie, and band mate Chad Morris headed up to the Big Apple.
"I found it a little crazy and far-fetched," Morris said. "I was like, ‘here goes Zoo with one of his crazy ideas again.'… but I decided to go for it."
Noticing that a number of the pianos were along the No. 1 subway line, Zeoli mapped out a plan of attack to hit as many pianos as possible in the short time they would be there. This was his first time in New York City.
"There were people everywhere, it's just a crowded place," he said. "Each piano that we went to, there were people who stopped and listened to the music and clapped. Certain places we drew a crowd."
With Morris accompanying him on guitar, Zeoli did acoustic versions of his band's songs and a few other tunes, including one by the Avett Brothers.
"The people on the street who were all milling about were really supportive," Zeoli said. "We were able to win over street crowds of New Yorkers everywhere we went to. That was sort of fun for us…. dropping into the deep end of the pool and staying afloat."
Their plan was to hit eight of the pianos. Zeoli ended up only being able to play six, because two of them were locked up for the night by the time he got to them. In those cases, he sat at the piano playing a melodica, a handheld musical instrument he brought along, while Morris accompanied him. They also got to play a piano in a Presbyterian church that was not part of the exhibit.
Zeoli recounts his journey on the band's blog.
"It was an amazing experience," Zeoli said. "I was nervous about the city, I had never been there.… It's absolutely beautiful, not prepared for how amazing it all was."
"It was just a great time in a lot of ways," Morris said. "It felt like it was something much bigger than us…. It felt like people were looking for an excuse to connect, and the piano just gave that easy excuse.
"It was a really cool trip."
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