Manchester Jazz Festival (MJF) is coming around once again, and is keeping up its reputation for discovering new talent in the city with a great collaboration with one of our finest. Manchester Jazz Festival and Forsyth’s Music Shop have joined forces once again to run a piano trail featuring 16 pianos across Greater Manchester in the run-up to and during Manchester Jazz Festival for anyone to play – and will also be running a competition with the chance to win prizes like a Yamaha digital piano.
Since 2022, Manchester Jazz Festival and Forsyth’s have been enhancing Manchester’s musical landscape with the addition of street pianos in public spaces and venues across the city as part of the Manchester Jazz Festival’s piano trail. The organisers are also aiming to fundraise for a bigger and better piano trail with their Play it Forward: Street Piano Fund campaign to maintain and expand the current network of street pianos to reach new venues, boroughs and communities across Greater Manchester all year round.
Many venues have wanted to keep the pianos for the benefit of everyone throughout the year, and with Forsyth’s help, places such as Piccadilly and Victoria Stations, Trafford Palazzo and the Lowry Outlet and Quayside have hosted pianos all year round. Sourcing, servicing, delivering and then ongoing maintenance of the pianos or indeed replacing them (Piccadilly Station is currently on its third piano in as many years due to the intensive use it gets!) is no small job.
As it moves into its fourth year of an even more ambitious piano trail across Manchester and the wider area, Manchester Jazz Festival and Forsyth’s are keen to make this an ongoing sustainable legacy and are therefore launching a fundraising campaign, Play it Forward: Street Piano Fund this Thursday 20th March, to make it easy for everyone who appreciates the pianos to help keep them going for the benefit of all.
Emma Loat, Manager of Forsyth’s Music, said: “For many years, we’ve proudly featured a street piano outside our shop on Deansgate, and the overwhelming love and appreciation it, along with the broader piano trail, has received over the past four years, has been truly heartwarming.
“With the trail expanding to 16 pianos this year, now reaching Oldham and Wigan, we see this as the perfect opportunity to establish a dedicated fund to ensure the long-term maintenance and growth of the network of Manchester street pianos. We invite you to help us ‘Play it Forward’ by making a donation today!”
All the Greater Manchester locations on the piano trail
There 16 piano locations across Greater Manchester, which are:
- Piccadilly Station
- Manchester Arndale
- Harvey Nichols
- HOME
- Victoria Station
- MediaCityUK
- Great Northern
- Corn Exchange
- Spinningfields,
- Royal Exchange Arcade
- Central Library
- Forsyth Music Shop
- Aviva Studios
- Trafford Palazzo,
- Grand Arcade, Wigan
- Spindles Town Square Shopping Centre, Oldham
How to enter the competition
Competition prizes up for grabs include a Yamaha P145 Digital Piano, two course meal for two at HOME, two free tickets to MIF show, Football City, Art United, and a birthday party for 12 children at Oxygen at Quayside MediaCityUK.
To be in with a chance of winning a prize, simply find one of the pianos in the trail, capture a short video of your tune (five minutes max), and post the video to your Instagram, Facebook or X account (*not as a story). Tag @manchesterjazzfestival on Facebook or Instagram or @manjazzfest on X and use the hashtag #mjfpianotrail2025.
The competition closes at midnight on May 31, 2025. At the end of the piano trail, mjf and Forsyth’s will select all winners and the winning entries will be showcased on social media and YouTube.
You can find out more and how you can support the Play it Forward: Street Piano Fund here.