The Venice Piano Man
He has been playing a full-sized piano on the Venice Beach Boardwalk for some 30 years now. Started playing piano at seven, prefers acoustic pianos to digital keyboards, and is classically trained. His presence there is sort of a luxury considering the downturn that Venice has taken. He claimed on an interview that before becoming a street performer, his work included sessions for “major record labels and touring with the legendary rock band Iron Butterfly.” He also held steady professional gigs at prestigious venues like the Ambassador Hotel and a few restaurants on Rodeo Drive. Sometime in 2025, his piano was impounded or destroyed during a city “cleanup,” which apparently sparked a community outcry. It seems 2025 was a particularly tumultuous year in terms of politics, even in California.
On the night I met him I was kind of lost, roaming around the Venice Boardwalk with my camera. There are many street performers in Venice, but not many stay until so late -perhaps because they don’t want to end up like him on that occasion, playing almost to themselves. Seeing him and hearing his sound felt like a bit of a mirage: Here was a classical piano piece in the middle of the night at a place that used to be a synonym for awesomeness and is now a rather depressed part of Los Angeles.
His presence is peculiar indeed. If you stumble upon him on the street, you might think he is one more homeless dude on the boardwalk. Yet when he sits in front of that piano, not too far away from the beach, he strikes an imposing presence. When his hands touch the keys he shuts his eyes very tight and appears to enter into some kind of musical trance, as if transported far away from this place I flew half the world to -vacation- in. While his fingers make the music, the gestures of his mouth gravitate between something of a toothless grin and the kind of facial expression that would be expected of someone who is bearing a heavy burden.
We didn’t exchange any words, partly because interrupting this solemn recital felt somewhat sacrilegious, but I wonder about his life story. I think he was playing Rachmaninoff. And yes: it is entirely possible that he doesn’t have a house, but he -owns- that piano. That’s how you know he cannot be a homeless man; he is Nathan Pino, the Piano Man of Venice Beach. His home is music.
