Zubin Kanga performs new works exploring cyborg pianism by Louis d’Heudieres, Alwynne Pritchard, Luke Nickel and himself.

In these performances Zubin combines the piano with a range of sensors, synthesizers, strobe lights, electronics, video, an instrument made of glass and other technologies. 

Louis d’Heudieres’ Reflects dans Sequana (2022) is a speculative fiction about Debussy's piano music and a Celtic river goddess cult. Making use of a sampler keyboard, electronics and video, it looks at traditional piano music through a warped lens, incorporating themes of pianistic technique, romantic hero-worship, and ritual cleansing.

Alwynne Pritchard's Heart of Glass (2019 rev. 2021) takes inspiration from Werner Herzog’s experimentations with hypnosis in 1976 film, Heart of Glass, to create a work in which the pianist seems to be hypnotised, performing around the piano (and in multiple personas on screen) in a performance inspired by drag, butoh dance and trance states.

In his 2021 piece, Steel on Bone, Zubin uses MiMU sensor gloves to morph and granulate the delicate, visceral and violent sounds from the inside of the piano.

Luke Nickel's hhiiddeenn vvoorrttiicceess uses Soundbrenner’s haptic metronomes alongside dreamlike roller-coaster visuals and the sounds of Ravel filtered through an AI, in a play of vertiginous tempi between the hands.

The performance is part of Cyborg Soloists, a multi-year artistic-research project innovating new types of interactions between musicians and new technologies, supported by a UKRI Future Leaders Fellowship. 

zubinkanga.com
lukenickel.com
alwynnepritchard.co.uk
louisdheudieres.com

cyborgsoloists.com

Alistair Zaldua and Sam Bailey will improvise short pieces for violin and piano before Zubin Kanga's performance.