Piano: Maki Namekawa & Dennis Russell Davies
Real-time Visualisation: Cori O’lan
Premiere at Abu Dhabi Festival 2018, 24th March
about the music:
Piano Phase was composed in 1967 for two pianos. It is one of the early compositions from Steve Reich where he uses his „phasing-technique“ also for instruments, a technique which he derived from early works with tape recorders and which would become a kind of signature style for much of his music.
Both pianists play the same 12-note pattern but over time they vary in speed and loudness so the result is a constantly floating and modulating combination of this pattern going in and out of phase. Steve Reich described this as “music as a gradual process” and such he pioneered ideas which became important topics in the musical production of the digital age, both in avant-garde as well as in popular music.
(The recording used in this video was done by Eric Pintar / Studio Weinberg at Brucknerhaus Linz)
about the visualisation:
The new visualisations for Piano Phase have been specifically created for the performance in Abu Dhabi and will be premiered on March 24th. The motifs for the visual interpretation derive from the music: approach and distance, changes that cannot be perceived in detail but only as a flowing process.
(The visualisation is a coproduction with Ars Electronica Futurelab and realised with vvvv)
pianographique - Piano Music x Digital Images 