If you didn’t already know by now, spontaneous piano performance videos are something of their own genre on YouTube.
For whatever reason, something about a performer playing a piano in a public place never fails to get the people going. In particular, there are countless videos of spontaneous performances coming out of London’s St. Pancras station—after all, the place has plenty of open public pianos for people to play. Still, though these videos started off actually spontaneous, they start to become formulaic and staged after a while.
Fortunately, other channels are picking up the slack with new and innovative versions of these performances.
One channel in particular that does this is Piano Around.
The channel is run by Dotan Negrin, a pianist who does musical street performances all around the world. Although his videos still have a staged aspect to them, the way he pulls it off is often different in each video—and each one has a way of sucking the crowd in and appearing spontaneous! This clip in particular is filmed in the streets of New York.
As it begins, Negrin can be seen on a rolling piano talking to a crowd that’s gathering around him.
After doing a little bit of crowd work, Negrin turns his attention to a “violin girl” sitting in the back.
Upon first glance, she appears to just be a bystander who is sitting on the curb with a violin—but actually, this is Ada Pasternak, a professional violinist, posing as a bystander!
Negrin and Pasternak start talking and he asks her what kind of music she plays. After a few moments, he asks if she would like to do a spontaneous duet with him, to which she says yes!
Needless to say, the crowd around them is pretty excited by this development.
She gets her violin out and approaches the piano bench.
The two talk for a moment before deciding to perform “Just The Two Of Us” together. The performance starts with Negrin playing a few simple chords to get the key and the rhythm down for both of them.
Without missing a beat, Pasternak matches him and starts improvising some beautiful melodies and runs over the piano! Playing his character well, Negrin acts shocked at how good this strange violin woman is!
After she plays her first part on the violin, she puts it down and starts singing.
By this point, everyone in the crowd is shocked at how good this random performance is.
Her voice is beautiful and jazzy and finds some surprising interpretations of the original music. After that quick verse, she sets back into her violin playing and the two keep improvising together.
She plays so quickly and with so much precision that a huge crowd starts to gather around them. At the end, they change the rhythm to a half time stomp and she starts singing again. At the very end, she returns to the most recognizable part of the song and finishes off.
So far, their duet has earned them eight million views on YouTube!
Although this performance is technically “staged,” the way these two pull it off is pretty slick!
Above all though, their musical chemistry is amazing and their unique spin on this classic song makes it all worthwhile. Although Negrin is ostensibly the star of this channel, Pasternak definitely steals the show with her furious violin performance and jazzy singing. If you enjoyed this, definitely check out Negrin’s channel for more—and more duets with Pasternak as well!
Congratulations to these two on their crafty and impressive performance! Watch the full thing below:
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