Zubin Kanga returns to Gaudeamus, performing four works that extend the piano, and his body, with cutting-edge technologies. Massimiliano Vizzini’s Fantasie Im(prompt)u, explores the changing role of AI in the artistic process, as well as a new experimental optical scanner, the Keyscanner, turning the piano into a hybrid audio-visual controller. Alex Paxton injects manic energy into Car-Pig, using sampler keyboards to layer dozens of sounds, from choirs, to bagpipes to animal noises. Zubin Kanga’s Steel on Bone uses MiMU sensor gloves to shape visceral sounds from inside the piano. And Laura Bowler’s SHOW(ti)ME explores the contrast between musicians’ public personas and their private anxieties, in an interdisciplinary work combining the speaking pianist with sensors and live audio-visual interaction.

Massimiliano Vizzini - Fantasie Im(prompt)u (World Premiere)
Alex Paxton - Car-Pig
Zubin Kanga - Steel on Bone
Laura Bowler - SHOW(ti)ME

Tickets for this performance may be purchased via the Gaudeamus website →

Car-Pig by Alex Paxton and SHOW(ti)ME by Laura Bowler were both commissioned by Zubin Kanga as part of Cyborg Soloists, supported by a UKRI Future Leaders Fellowship and Royal Holloway, University of London. Steel on Bone was also developed as part of Cyborg Soloists. Fantasie Im(prompt)u by Massimiliano Vizzini was co-commissioned by Gaudeamus Festival and Zubin Kanga, with the support of Gaudeamus Festival.

Zubin Kanga will be premiering Larry Goves’ Cyborg Soloists-commissioned concerto Curious codes of silence with Explore Ensemble at 2024’s Aldeburgh Festival. Laura Bowler’s SHOW(ti)ME is also on the programme, as are pieces by Lara Agar and Alex Paxton.

Lara Agar: New work (Britten Pears Arts co-commission / first performance) (15’)

Larry Goves: Curious codes of silence (first performance) (20’)

Laura Bowler: SHOW(ti)ME (20’)

Alex Paxton: Spit Crystal Yeast-rack, dripping (à l’orange) (15')

Explore Ensemble
Nicholas Moroz live sound
Zubin Kanga piano, keyboard, Lumatone, MiMU gloves, multimedia

For full details and ticket bookings, visit the Britten Pears website →

What happens when you fuse the piano instrument with cutting-edge technology? In his performance of Shiva Feshareki, Zubin Kanga complements his piano play with immersive electronics and ambisonic surround sounds. In his own music, he distorts Bach's music with analog synthesisers and MiMU's sensor hands, while in Laura Bowler's work, he explores the complex relationship with social media through live video and audio, speech and movement theatre.

Programme

Shiva Feshareki: Whirling Dervishes

Zubin Kanga: Hypnagogia (after Bach)

Laura Bowler: SHOW(ti)ME

More information and tickets from the Flagey website →

Zubin Kanga performs a varied programme of works for piano and an assortment of technologies for Modulus Festival in Vancouver:

How does a pianist “play the internet”? Alexander Schubert’s WIKI-PIANO.NET is a hilarious and curious challenge that pairs piano, spoken instructions, and an internet score that can change at any time.

Laura Bowler’s SHOW(ti)ME investigates our physical and virtual selves. Over the course of the piece, you’ll witness an explosive magnification of the minutia of being a pianist, contorted through a collage of multimedia.

In Luke Nickel’s hhiiddeenn vvoorrttiicceess, simulated roller coaster velocities become metronomic pulsations passing through wireless connections to small vibrating watches cueing a pianist to press keys that hit hammers on strings. It’s a wild – and fun! – ride.

And Zubin Kanga’s Metamemory is a dialogue between his real and artificial music memories, using a neural network created from Kanga’s own past to create music that is both monstrous and strangely beautiful.

More information and ticket bookings from Music on Main →

Pianist, composer and technologist Zubin Kanga launches his debut solo album with NMC, Cyborg Pianist, in a concert featuring all six newly commissioned works, using new technologies to swirl, melt and morph the sounds of his piano and keyboards. Across these works, Kanga creates distinct and unique sound worlds by blending the piano with immersive electronics, dialoguing with synthesizers, bending pitch with new keyboard instruments, shaping sound in the air using sensor gloves, playing with the audio-visual sonification of brain data, and duetting with AI-generated sounds.

More information and tickets from the Kings Place website →

Programme

Oliver Leith Vicentino, love you – studies for keyboard ('L’antica musica ridotta alla moderna prattica)

Zubin Kanga Hypnagogia (after Bach) (excerpt)

Shiva Feshareki Whirling Dervishes (album version)

Laurence Osborn Counterfeits (Siminică)

Emily Howard DEVIANCE

Laura Bowler SHOW(ti)ME

Zubin Kanga presents the premiere performance of Laura Bowler’s SHOW(ti)ME, an investigation into the multiplicities of the physical and virtual self through the lens of piano performance and practice. Excavating the intimate relationship between performance and instrument, SHOW(ti)ME gradually draws back the mask of performance, revealing the performer’s vulnerabilities through an explosive magnification of the minutia of piano practice.

The performing self is extended and contorted through a collaging of multimedia practices: live camera, pre-recorded camera, MiMU gloves, live and fixed electronics.

Free event. See the hcmf// website for full details here →