Sing for Hope

Sing for Hope Pianos

Sing for Hope Pianos is a public art initiative that commissions artists to paint bespoke pianos, places them in high-traffic public spaces for public performance, and subsequently relocates and maintains them in public schools, healthcare centers, and community facilities. The program has placed hundreds of instruments throughout the New York City metropolitan area and in municipal installations globally, making it one of the largest civilian donors of acoustic pianos to public school systems.

Public Health & Wellbeing

The Public Health & Wellbeing program designs research-informed arts and music interventions within healthcare networks, public transit hubs, and civic centers. The program operates through three core divisions:

• Healing Arts: Produces live, genre-diverse musical performances tailored for patients, clinical staff, and family caregivers. Sing for Hope acts as the primary bedside and facility musical partner for NYC Health + Hospitals, the largest municipal public healthcare system in the United States.
• Creative Placemaking: Utilizes site-specific musical performances to foster social connection across major transit networks. Ongoing activation sites include Moynihan Train Hall and the Oculus at the World Trade Center in New York, the Port Authority Bus Terminal and Newark Liberty International Airport in New Jersey, and Union Station (Washington, D.C.).
• Creative Crisis Response: Delivers trauma-informed arts programming designed to mitigate chronic stress and aid social-emotional learning among refugee and displaced communities. Initiated in 2018 at Athens' Skaramagas refugee camp in partnership with El Sistema Greece, the initiative has since expanded arts programming across humanitarian sites in Southern Europe and Africa.

Education

Sing for Hope's education programming provides arts-integrated youth instruction and service-learning initiatives:

• Sing for Hope Lab: Delivers daily in-school arts curricula, after-school instruction, and summer enrichment programming for public school students across The Bronx and Southern Westchester.
• Sing for Hope HandaHarmony Youth Chorus: A choral ensemble serving youth ages 6–18 across the New York metropolitan area. Established through a multi-year endowment from the International Foundation for Arts and Culture and Japanese philanthropist Haruhisa Handa, the ensemble performs at civic events and international summits, including the United Nations High-level Political Forum on Sustainable Development.
• Global Goals Arts Curriculum: A free, digital curriculum platform for educators in grades 5–12 aligned with the National Core Arts Standards (NCAS). The interdisciplinary lesson modules integrate visual art, music, creative writing, dance/movement, and drama to educate students on the United Nations' 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

Cultural Advocacy

The Cultural Advocacy program integrates creative activations into peacebuilding efforts, international policy dialogues, and civic convenings. Sing for Hope serves as the official cultural partner to the World Summit of Nobel Peace Laureates and has developed creative programming for global organizations and academic forums, including the Aspen Ideas Festival, Harvard University, The Fletcher School at Tufts University, the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, the Skoll World Forum at the University of Oxford, and the United Nations.

Creative Workforce Development

Creative Workforce Development trains and compensates professional performing and visual artists as community placemakers and arts-in-health practitioners. Working alongside medical researchers and community specialists, participating artists receive practical training in trauma-informed facilitation and clinical protocol, creating structured economic opportunities for freelance artists within the public health and municipal sectors.