Read Peter Page’s review of this performance in The Cusp →

Zubin Kanga performs the UK premiere of Neil Luck’s 40-minute work for piano, electronics, two videos and MiMU sensor gloves, Whatever Weighs You Down. An intense and bizarre meditation on weights, senses, inertia and dreams, Whatever Weighs You Down features Deaf performance artist Chisato Minamimura as an onscreen co-performer in an intense gestural dialgoue with Kanga’s piano and sonified movements using the MiMU gloves. Composer-performer James Oldham also appears as a chaotic second onscreen protagonist.

World premieres by Nina Whiteman and Nwando Ebizie, combining the piano with a Moog synthesizer and sensor technology from Movesense and Holonic Systems, alongside Kanga’s own Steel on Bone, and a solo performance by Luck complete the programme.

Nina Whiteman – Cybird Cybird (World Premiere)
Nwando Ebizie – I Will Fix Myself (Just Circles) (World Premiere)
Zubin Kanga – Steel on Bone
Neil Luck – New Work (World Premiere)
Neil Luck – Whatever Weighs You Down (UK Premiere)

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Zubin Kanga premieres new works by Nina Whiteman and Alex Groves alongside Luke Nickel’s hhiiddeenn vvoorrttiicceess, his own Steel on Bone and Alexander Schubert’s WIKI-PIANO.NET in this programme for Music in the Round.

The programme uses a range of technologies from Cyborg Soloists industry partners. Whiteman uses Movesense sensors with Holonic Systems software alongside AI-manipulated field recordings from her daily commute to explore alien sonic environments through gesture. Groves uses ROLI’s LUMI keyboards, Nickel uses Soundbrenner’s haptic metronomes to feed tempi from rollercoasters onscreen to Zubin Kanga as he performs at the piano. Kanga’s Steel on Bone uses the motion-sensing capabilities of MiMU gloves to manipulate sounds from inside the piano.

And, finally, Alexander Schubert’s WIKI-PIANO.NET from 2018 explores the nature of internet culture with a score that can be shaped by audience contributions. Make your own contribution to this performance by adding or editing material for this piece at wiki-piano.net.

Nina Whiteman - cybird cybird (world premiere)

Alex Groves - Single Form (Swell) (world premiere)

Zubin Kanga - Steel on Bone (2021)

Luke Nickel - hhiiddeenn vvoorrttiicceess (2022)

Alexander Schubert - WIKI-PIANO.NET (2018)

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The first of Nina Whiteman’s Cybird Trilogy, Fuming uses machine learning to examine her daily walk along a busy arterial road. This performance positions Fuming within a programme of new works that explore how machine learning is changing and challenging human creativity.

For programme details and tickets, visit the Eventbrite page