LAST year Jean-Louis Cortès bought Hereford to a halt as his extraordinary motorised piano danced and glided through the city centre. This July on the courtyard outside the Left Bank, Jean-Louis and Jeanne plus the piano will dance the tango on the banks of the Wye. Afterwards upstairs in De Koffie Pot, Little Rumba will join up with Jean-Louis to play a tango inspired set (£4 on the door). They are inviting everyone including dancers from all the tango clubs they regularly play, Oxford, Reading, Bristol and of course Hereford and Malvern to come and join the fun.

Jean-Louis Cortès, alias Macadam Piano, is from the Loire valley, and was a professional studio based musician for many years but was inspired to change direction after reading ‘Novecento’ by Alessandro Baricco in which a boy becomes a piano virtuoso on board a ship without ever setting a foot on land. ‘I find this story magnificent and wanted to recreate the sensation of being about to move around at the same time as creating music’. Jean-Louis worked with Erwan Bellan from the theatre company Royale Deluxe in Nantes creators of the Giant Spectacular. Their intriguing invention, a grand piano which, with the aid of a motor and pedals, can glide through the streets has visited cities and towns all over the world, from China to the United States. Jean-Louis, ‘Each time it is a great success because music speaks to everyone’.

Jean-Louis is an astonishing pianist who plays a wide range of the music he loves from Ragtime and Fats Waller to Debussy and Daft Punk! He will be accompanied by Jeanne, a wonderful violinist and clown.

Border favourites Little Rumba will be performing with Jean-Louis upstairs at De Koffie Pot. DON'T MISS