Sorry if we're too influenced by the title of a certain Fifties/Sixties TV western series, but now that we have a piano at the Legation, we can make music. Here's Abdel Malek Agdi, teacher at the Tangier Conservatoire de Musique, and sometime piano tuner. His testing of our keys and pedals was more than technical, and his riffs on Mozart brought people to the Legation, including its former owner.
Our new (well, used) piano was manna from heaven, in that our neighbors at Riad Tanja no longer needed theirs. And we were in the market: we are going to have a special concert on 14 March with Irene Herrmann playing Paul Bowles compositions.
Other Legation friends made sure that the piano functioned, and we even had one of Abdel Malek's Conservatoire colleagues, a pianist herself, test it before we plonked down our money. Funds, by the way, thanks to our friends at the Cultural section of the US Embassy in Rabat.
So, perhaps for the first time in decades… maybe a century?… the Legation has a piano. As Yosemite Sam said (sort of), "Come with me to the Legation! We'll make beautiful music together!" Well, he actually said, "Come with me to the Casbaaaaaaaah! We'll make beautiful music together!"
Gerald Loftus
