Half Moon Bay's 'Sunset Piano' Lives Forever in a New Book

The Sunset Piano. It’s a story Half Moon Bay residents will never forget. A local artist set up a weathered grand piano on the bluffs overlooking the Pacific Ocean in Half Moon Bay and played sonatas to crowds during sunset every night for weeks on end until city officials warned him about the permit he did not have.

The piano installation was then packaged up, moved to the Half Moon Bay Yacht Club for an encore performance, and toured on a fishing boat in Pillar Point Harbor before it was set on fire in what the artist Mauro Ffortissimo called a “cremation ceremony.”

There's so much more to this story, and the finer details of this extraordinary tale  now live on in a 60-page book, featuring photographs and essays by photographer Lars Howlett chronicling the experience.

“I see the Sunset Piano as a lesson in death and dying, a reminder of the fragility of life and how relationships fade due to the passage of time and neglect,” said Howlett. “Our days are numbered just as they were for the Sunset Piano and there is a lasting value in breaking routine to meet up with someone to watch the sunset.”

The book begins with the first e-mail sent to Howlett from Ffortissimo proposing the project in January to the morning after the "cremation ceremony" at Enso Art Gallery and Studio end of February. The book features stunning photographs by Howlett, documenting the progression of the installation from the very first sunset concerts to the encore performance at the Half Moon Bay Yacht Club and the wake when the piano was toured on a fishing boat around Pillar Point Harbor.

“It's incredible to see the photos from the first few days with only about 10 people gathered around. As the word spread between neighbors and via social media, the audience builds to the Valentine's Day audience of what seemed like 1,000 people,” said Howlett, who printed 50 small format paperbacks and 10 collector's edition coffee table hardcovers. The collector's edition includes an original notation painting by Ffortissimo and comes numbered and signed by the two artists. Howlett designed and edited the book using Adobe Lightroom. It is self-published with Blurb, although he is interested in finding a publisher.

The paperback is $25 and the limited edition hardcover is $150. The paperbacks are available this weekend at the Maker Faire in San Mateo or at the June 4 closing reception at the Coastal Arts League Gallery and Museum in Half Moon Bay. Direct purchases from Howlett and Ffortissimo will save tax and shipping.

“We have sold out of the collector's edition and are taking reservations for the second printing, which will also include small paintings and be signed and numbered,” said Howlett. People interested in the collector's edition can email me@FindLars.com. The paperback is also available at http://www.blurb.com/b/4277852.

Even though the baby grand is a mere pile of ashes long blown away and the memory fades for some, the story of the Sunset Piano lives on in Howlett’s book, which in his words "captures the spirit of the concerts on the bluffs, the community collaboration, and unique moment in time that was shared by so many."