Playing Piano at Mayfair Mall

Having played the piano at Mayfair Mall for years, I — along with the four other pianist at Mayfair Mall — was shocked and saddened to receive a cursory email on Friday, April 25, 2014 telling me that — for corporate budget reasons — live piano music at Mayfair Mall was being suspended effective April 27, 2014.

I absolutely loved playing piano at Mayfair Mall. Actually, I LOVE playing the piano anywhere! But playing the piano at Mayfair Mall was a unique experience and special opportunity to entertain people as they lunched or caught a quick bite in the Food Court.

Since the shoppers at Mayfair Mall were as varied as you can imagine, the music that I played at Mayfair Mall ranged from standards from Gershwin and the American Songbook to the latest hits among Middle Schoolers. How many times I played “Let it Go” from Frozen!

From day to day — I played lunches on Mondays and Thursdays — I never knew what to expect when I sat down at the piano. During the Holiday Season Mayfair Mall is filled with shoppers. But most of the year it was fairly quiet during lunch unless a field trip of hungry middle-school or high-school students arrived.

When colleges and universities were on break, the number of shoppers picked up and so did the tempo of the music with young people asking for a more contemporary sound.

And then, mostly during the summer, there were the interesting tourists from all over Wisconsin and the Midwest and, on occasion, from around the world: Mexico, China, Germany, etc.

I had a lot of fun playing piano at Mayfair Mall. In the late 1980s when my wife and I were considering moving to the Milwaukee area, we had lunch at the Mayfair Mall Food Court and we were delighted to hear live piano music. It was a very nice experience and it helped convince us to relocate our family here.

As we ate and listened to the piano player, I thought to myself:  “Maybe, I’ll have a chance to do that some day.”

I’ll always be grateful for the opportunity to play at Mayfair Mall. I hope that a way is found for this great long-held musical tradition to return to Mayfair Mall.

Pat Byrne

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A nice article about the abrupt end of live piano music at Mayfair Mall and featuring another one of their fine pianist — Paul Bahr —  was posted on the Wauwatosa Now web site on May 6. 2014.

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I was interviewed in my home on May 7, 2014 by Todd Hicks of TMJ 4 for a report that was part of today’s 6:00 p.m news. The report has also been posted on their web site.