RADIO PIANO
Radio Piano is a composition for extended piano and auditorium that uses discrete micro-FM transmissions and shortwave radio communication from within and around a grand piano. In this piece, radio waves are gathered live to be used as componants for the performance, cycled through the piano and then broadcast to multiple portable radios that have been placed in the seats of an auditorium. The audience, seated onstage, expereinces a reverse perspective as portions of the piece emanate back from the auditorium to the stage.
From my perspective, pianos are curious cultural instruments and Melvin Severy and George Sinclair's 1916 patent documents for the Choalcelo provided inspiration for Radio Piano, not for the technical extension of the piano, but for what the fluid graphism of the circut becomes, a wildly futurist map of the unseen.
Image by Todd Birdsong
Radio Piano, live performance from Outside the Box Festival of Contemporary Music at Southern Illinois University.