WORCESTER — Worcester has a number of striking murals and other street art across the city courtesy of programs like PowWow! Worcester and the vibrant art scene including paintings and sculptures.

Recently, students at the Nativity School of Worcester decided to add their own creations to the community adding something new to the mix — music.

On Friday students at the fifth- through eighth-grade Jesuit school gathered at First Baptist Church to paint seven upright pianos that will beplaced around the city for public use.

“Over the years, we had accrued a number of upright pianos that weren’t getting a lot of use,” said Wesley Hall, minister of music and the arts at First Baptist. While a church with an active music program where various groups meet each week would require a large number of pianos, the collection at First Baptist was becoming excessive, he said. After learning about other towns and cities placing painted pianos throughout their communities, “the seed was planted,” Hall said.

He approached the Nativity School about the project soon after.

“We looked around at who was in our immediate neighborhood and we loved the Nativity School and everything it represents,” said Hall, “and thought this would be a wonderful way to connect with our neighbors and spread love, joy, music and art across our community.”

Great opportunity for students; forging bonds

Andrea Munar, the school principal, saw this as a great opportunity for students, who had their first day of school Wednesday, to get out into the community as well as forge bonds with their classmates at the beginning of the school year.

“With our location, we’re right next to the highway. We’re a little bit far from the businesses on Lincoln Street,” said Munar, “so we’re not really in a neighborhood where we can easily partner with somewhere like a grocery store, so it’s really great that (Hall) reached out.”

Students planned the designs in small groups beforehand made up of students in the same grade, headed by one adult.

“Each student got to talk about what they would like on the piano and collaborate with one another,” said Munar, “and how to get everybody’s design into the one piano and incorporate different themes and values from our school.”

Pride and BLM featured in students' designs

Despite calls from the Diocese of Worcester for the Nativity School not to display Pride and Black Lives Matter flags, those themes were featured in a number of the students' piano designs. Others featured anything from superheroes to celebrations of the city of Worcester overall.

Hall is hopeful that one of the pianos can be placed at Polar Park saying, "it represents such a new leaf for the city and has been something of a community project so it makes sense to have one of these instruments there."

First Baptist and the Nativity School will each have one as well, with the remaining pianos distributed throughout public parks, breweries and restaurants around the city.

The project was more than just a collaboration between the church and school — art nonprofit Main Idea, whose director, Joy Murrieta, attends First Baptist, brought her expertise on youth art projects to planning the logistics of organizing the paint day.

"It was great to see the kids really take ownership and pride in what they were making," said Murrieta.

She added that judging how much they would need in terms of supplies proved a slight challenge, such as paints and brushes.

“At one point it was an artist and a musician with our calculators out to figure out how much square footage of each color was needed," laughed Hall.

Supplies as well as an additional piano were donated by parishioners from First Baptist. Local business Paiz Piano movers donated another two pianos and provided a deeply discounted rate to move the instruments both to the church and out into the city, which will be dropped off all in one day.

"One of the things that students are most excited about is to see where the pianos will be," said Munar.

This article originally appeared on Telegram & Gazette: Pride, BLM part of designs of painted pianos created by Nativity School students