Resonating Gestures

Resonating Gestures

Resonating Gestures

amplified piano

amplified piano

Pianist seated at a grand piano with one hand raised above the keyboard during performance.

Photo: Daniele Ciferri

Year

2015

Duration

8 min

Category

Piano

Across five partially amplified movements, keyboard, pedals, strings, wooden body, voice and breath reveal a piano whose every physical gesture leaves a resonant trace.

Across five partially amplified movements, keyboard, pedals, strings, wooden body, voice and breath reveal a piano whose every physical gesture leaves a resonant trace.

Across five partially amplified movements, keyboard, pedals, strings, wooden body, voice and breath reveal a piano whose every physical gesture leaves a resonant trace.

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Resonating Gestures
Resonating Gestures · IV/V · 2018
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FILMED PERFORMANCE · 2018

Programme Note

Resonating Gestures treats the piano as a complex resonant system whose keyboard, strings, pedals, mechanisms and wooden body all participate in sound production. A strongly percussive approach explores the passage from attack to vibration, decay and silence, while partial amplification brings normally peripheral mechanical sounds and resonances into the foreground.

Across five movements, precisely controlled keyboard and pedal actions progressively extend towards direct contact with the instrument’s body. Register, colour and dynamic energy are joined by increasingly physical gestures, while the resonance generated by each action becomes as significant as the attack itself.

Voice and breath eventually enter this resonant field, interacting directly with the piano and its acoustic aftermath. Gesture is therefore conceived not as an isolated event, but as a physical action whose vibration continues beyond the moment of contact, connecting performer, instrument and surrounding space.

From the Score

Pedal and blocked-key resonance control
Pianistic gesture and extreme registers
Voice, breath and resonant gesture

Score

Published by BabelScores.

Gallery

Pianist performing at a grand piano with an open score on the music stand.
Pianist performing at a grand piano with an open score on the music stand.

Jennifer Lee · amplified piano performance