Micheál Ó Súílleabháin is performing at two fundraising concerts to 'Send a Piana to Havana'.

In 1994, an American piano tuner named Ben Treuhaft set up Send a Piana to Havana, a scheme whereby donated pianos can find their way out of America and into the music schools of Havana.

In May of this year, Galway piano tuner Ciaran Ryan worked in Havana with the project and next year he will return with a team of Irish piano tuners to help establish a school of piano tuning in Cuba. The last piano tuners trained on the island were graduates of a Russian instructor in the 1970s, and a population of more than 11 million has been relying on 8 ageing tuners - 4 of them blind - to maintain the country's pianos since then.

To raise much-needed funds for the school, concerts have been organized in Dublin and Galway with performances by Barry Douglas, Joanna McGregor, Micheál Ó Súilleabháin, Mel Mercier and Cuban pianist Vladimir Karell with the Conor Guilfoyle Trio.

The concerts take place in Vicar Street, Dublin on Sunday 10 December and Black Box, Galway on Wednesday 13 December.

Posted: 13 December 2006