Alicia Keys bids farewell to Kobe Bryant by playing Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata

For Kobe and Gianna Bryant’s Celebration of Life ceremony at the NBA legend’s old stomping grounds at Los Angeles’ Staples Center on Monday, Alicia Keys performed a rendition of Beethoven’s “Moonlight Sonata”. Keys had first paid tribute to the basketball icon when she had hosted the 62nd annual Grammy Awards on Jan. 26. It was the same day when Bryant was killed in a helicopter crash in Calabasas, Calif., alongside his 13-year-old daughter Gianna and seven other passengers.

During her opening monologue Keys expressed that as everyone sits together for music’s biggest night celebrating the artists that do it best, everyone is feeling a crazy sadness as America and the whole wide world has lost a hero. She said that everyone was standing on literally the house that Kobe Bryant had built.

Lakers general manager and Gianna’s godfather Rob Pelinka stated before her performance that Beethoven’s “Moonlight Sonata” was Bryant’s ultimate love song for his wife Vanessa. Pelinka also shared that during a family get together that Bryant had expressed his wish to learn how to play the classical arrangement for Vanessa as a testament of their love.

Pelinka expressed that Vanessa brought out Kobe’s romantic side like nobody else in the world could and while he was away, he wanted to live in his love for Vanessa so at night under the moonlit sky, he vowed to teach himself by ear to play the first movement of Beethoven’s ‘Moonlight Sonata’.

Pelinka remembered thinking there is no way he could learn it but the next morning Kobe called and played the first few measures. He took to Internet to visit website of piano teaching, and by the end of the week, he had mastered the entire piece and played it over the phone without a mistake.

Alicia Keys wore a satin purple suit jacket with rhinestone-embellished puff sleeves during the performance. During her piano ballad she was accompanied by a string quartet.