Showing posts with label Original. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Original. Show all posts

Friday, December 31, 2010

Post-Modern Destructive Jazz

This was the finale piece azz Concerto for piano and reciprocating saws. It was performed in 4 seamless movements which were: Movement 1: Improvisation This movement feature freely improvising piano prepared with coins and wooden objects. Movement 2: Detuning movementg hammer detune playing. tension removed another cutting the strings in half with a bolt cutter. Movement 3: Dissection It is the 3rd movement features a small jazz ensemble improvising Mingus-like drones while duel reciprocating saws attempt to saw the piano in half. This movement ended up being much longer than anticipated. In fact, the saws were not able to complete the job and after more than 20 batteries and countless discarded blades, the performers gave up. Movement 4: Destruction This 4th movement was not initially planned as part of the composition, but was improvised at the last minute when I picked up a sledge hammer from backstage and manually smashed through the last bit of cast iron and wood holding the piano together.