Winery supports 6th year of Flower Piano program September 17-21
September 14 — Napa Valley and San Francisco — Smith-Madrone is honored to be the winery partner for San Francisco Botanical Garden’s Flower Piano program, taking place September 17 – 21. The Botanical Garden is located at Strybing Arboretum in Golden Gate Park, at 1199 9th Avenue and Lincoln Way.
Over five days, Flower Piano features twelve pianos placed throughout the Botanical Garden. Participants are invited to explore the Garden’s global living plant collections and savor beautiful music throughout. Each of the pianos has scheduled professional performances as well as open play time for participants, attracting a range of genres, ages, and cultures.
Full program details are available at https://www.sfbg.org/
Flower Piano is presented in partnership with Sunset Piano. “After five successful years, and a pause in 2020 due to the pandemic, we are excited to welcome the community to the City’s outdoor concert hall where everyone is invited to play and listen,” explains Dean Mermell of Sunset Piano. “We are thrilled to have music back in the Garden,” says Stephanie Linder, Executive Director, San Francisco Botanical Garden. “Flower Piano brings the Botanical Garden to life like nothing else we’ve ever seen.”
“Smith-Madrone Winery is honored to be a part of this event,” commented founder Stuart Smith. “Our name pays tribute to the madrone tree, prevalent on our property in the mountains. Madrones are wonderful evergreens with reddish bark and flowers that turn into berries. It’s a great link to supporting the Botanical Garden and its mission,” he added.
Sunset Piano
Mauro ffortissimo and Dean Mermell together launched Sunset Piano in 2013 when ffortissimo covertly rolled an old grand piano onto the bluffs over Half Moon Bay. Since then, Sunset Piano has expanded this impromptu musical and social experiment, temporarily placing pianos in a wide variety of unexpected natural and urban settings around the Bay Area every year, from the top of Montara Mountain to Market Street. Since 2015, Flower Piano has a unique collaboration with San Francisco Botanical Garden and Sunset Piano’s largest and most ambitious undertaking. More: https://sunsetpiano.com/.
San Francisco Botanical Garden
San Francisco Botanical Garden at Strybing Arboretum connects people to plants, the planet, and each other. A living museum within Golden Gate Park, San Francisco Botanical Garden offers 55 acres of beautiful gardens displaying nearly 8,000 different kinds of plants from around the world, including many that are rare and endangered. Established in 1940, it is a public/private partnership between San Francisco Botanical Garden Society and the San Francisco Recreation and Park Department. More: https://www.sfbg.org/ .
Smith-Madrone
Smith-Madrone is one of Napa Valley’s authentically artisanal wineries, founded in 1971 by Stuart Smith. Winemaking and grape-growing are handled entirely by the two brother-proprietors, Stuart and Charles Smith. All of Smith-Madrone’s wines come from the 38 acres of estate vineyards surrounding the winery in the Spring Mountain District, originally planted 48 years ago by Stuart and Charles. The vineyards extend across steep mountainsides, at steep slopes at elevations between 1,300 and 1,900 feet. Total production each year is less than 4,000 cases. Smith-Madrone’s current releases are the 2017 Chardonnay, 2016 Cabernet Sauvignon, 2017 Riesling and 2016 Cook’s Flat Reserve. More: www.smithmadrone.com.
Other Flower Piano sponsors include the John & Marcia Goldman Foundation, Delle Maxwell & Patrick Hanahan, The Ronald Whittier Family Foundation, Almonte Spa, Outside Lands Works, Silicon Valley Bank, Sarah & J. Stuart Ryan, DC Pianos, Fiorella, Kawai, O’Melveny, Seiler LLP, Sue Ann Levin Schiff, Center for New Music, Duchess C.T., Jennifer Rosdail Real Estate Team, Tiedemann Advisors, and the Tully & Elise Friedman Fund.
