Augmented Piano (variable programmes)
Multimedia works for disklavier (an acoustic piano with a computer interface); multimedia works for acoustic piano; or a mix of works for disklavier and acoustic piano with multimedia. Repertoire described below:
Multimedia works for disklavier (an acoustic piano with a computer interface)
• Duet for solo piano (for sampling disklavier), Composer: Eve Egoyan
• Homonymy (prepared disklavier, voice, movement and video), Composer/ Artist: John Oswald
• Surface Tension (disklavier and real-time video), Co-creators: Eve Egoyan/David Rokeby
• Palimpia (disklavier), Composer: John Oswald
Multimedia works for acoustic piano
• Constellations (piano and sine tones), Composer: Chiyoko Szlavnics
• David Lynch Études (amplified piano, amplified voice/foot stomping/guitar and soundtrack with video), Composer: Nicole Lizée
• Simple Lines of Enquiry / Machine for Taking Time (piano and video), Composer: Ann Southam; Video Artist, David Rokeby
This presentation is the meeting of two independent works of art; the music and video are not explicitly synchronized, but move through time in compatible ways that enliven each other. Both works involve a process of unfolding – a camera pans across a city and across time; the music explores of the emotional possibilities of a twelve-interval row. Each embraces extreme detail and timeless expansiveness. The held sonorities of the piano link seamlessly to the subtle pan/shift of images through time. They are both gently emotional contemplations of transience; places of remembering and letting go.
Simple Lines of Enquiry (2007) by Ann Southam
Written for Eve Egoyan, Simple Lines of Enquiry is an eloquent and quietly emotional work relying on its slow unraveling to evoke a magically suspended, weightless sound world. Its stillness and intimacy invite listeners’ into an environment of deep listening and contemplation.
“2009: Ten Exceptional Recordings… The test of a great recording is whether you find yourself temporarily unable to live without it. For certain overlapping periods this year, I couldn’t stop listening to… Ann Southam’s immense, mysterious piano piece Simple Lines of Enquiry.” — Alex Ross, The New Yorker
To create Machine for Taking Time (Boul. Saint-Laurent), David Rokeby positioned cameras high on a building in Montreal and recorded 750.000 images over the course of a year, capturing a broad swath of the city in every season, in every angle of light, and in every weather condition. The resulting database of images is explored by a computer, which stitches together leisurely continuous pans across the city, staying true to the spatial trajectory but shifting unpredictably through time.