In 2010, Czech composer Eliška Cílková began searching for and recording the abandoned pianos of Pripyat, becoming the first composer to record the pianos left behind in the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone.

The recordings became the Pripyat Piano CD album, released by the Kraków-based label Mathka in 2013.

In 2016, Pripyat Piano was featured and discussed in Jennie Gottschalk’s book Experimental Music Since 1970 (Bloomsbury Academic), where the project is examined within the context of contemporary experimental music, sound, place and historical memory. Cílková was the first artist to systematically search for and record the abandoned pianos of Pripyat. The Pripyat Piano recordings were also made partly available as free downloads and went on to inspire other artists around the world to work with these sounds or undertake similar piano-recording projects.

Each location became the basis for an individual track, preserving the unique sound of the piano and the acoustic character of the space in which it was found. Years later, the recordings became the foundation for the documentary film of the same name, Pripyat Piano.