Piano Con Moto - piano, video and electronics (2007)

Format:  PDF only (score only *no video or electronics are included)
Dimensions:  11 x 17 in.
Performing Rights Society:  ASCAP
Duration:  Ca. 14'18"
Pages:  18

“Piano Con Moto,” for piano, video, computer music, and three computers (live visual and audio processing), revisits a topic that captivated a generation of artists during 1910s and 1920s: the possibilities for synthesizing two divergent media into one artistic expression to create a new art form.  Alexander Scriabin and Vladimir Baranoff-Rossiné used a type of piano capable of navigating between audio and visual realms: Scriabin imagining a “Tastiera per Luce”, a color piano, for the performance of his “Promethée”; Baranoff-Rossiné's “piano optophonique” projected light through painted and rotating glass plates, the colors and rhythms of which closely complemented the music.  

Arising from this context, a pianist, video artist, composer, and a video programmer collaborate to create a work involving a temporal-visual element, bringing a fused expression of two components.  This five-movement work creates a fused expression of musical and visual components.  In this project, the pianist does not only manipulate both audio and visual elements during the performance, but is also asked to respond musically to these two components.  The visual components are influenced by the sound parameters produced by the piano (amplitude, pitch/color, speed/rhythm, texture, etc.). Through the microphones placed near the piano, sounds are recorded, transmitted, and processed in real-time, and then simultaneously re-calculated and applied to various visual parameters (hue, color, speed/rhythm, saturation, brightness etc.).  Within a given set of restrictions, the pianist is instructed to react to both the music she hears and the images she sees during the performance.  Moving images thereby serve as a second kind of musical score.  

More information about the work and a video sample can be found under Works/Solo page and on View|Listen page.