six pianos!
This is the opening of a piece for six pianos which I wrote earlier this year, for a first performance in Leeds Corn Exchange, an extraordinary building encasing a large oval-shaped space on three levels, linked by curving staircases. This was for a FUSELeeds/spnm concert in May curated by Rolf Hind, who had the great idea of filling this wonderful space with the sound of lots of pianos. I thought of my music working on different layers like the architecture it was written for, and in this opening section you can hear slow chords from the two grand pianos which form a kind of deep, underground level, while gradually much livelier, more jazzy conversation gets going between two uprights and later a honky-tonk. (Later still there’s also a celesta whose ‘floating’ music creates another level again; but for that you need to hear the whole piece!). It’s called Music for Strings and Hammers, performed here by Rolf Hind, Sarah Nichols, Noriko Ogawa, Andrew Ball, Richard Casey and Daniel Becker.
Music by Jeremy Thurlow.
