Photo of a woman with red hair peering at a metal and white plastic device inside a piano. Many cables flow from the device out over the side of the instrument.

Joanna Ward adjusts Sam Underwood’s robotic device inside the piano

Joanna Ward

FULL AND HOLLOW (bean piece 4)

This is a piece made for Zubin and the “kind of inside-piano machine” that was built for him by Sam Underwood and programmed by Richard Sewell. I experienced the machine in person — truly being able to appreciate its unique and very endearing properties — at the start of this year (2022). After that session I went away and thought about how to combine engagement with it in its specificity — as an object and an interface — with giving Zubin space to play with the unpredictable and still unknown ways that the machine can make sound. I layered these concerns with my usual preoccupations as a composer: beans, songs, and colour.

The device in place on the bass strings of the piano

Close up of one of the elements of the device

Close up of the resonators on the bass strings

Joanna Ward and Zubin Kanga setting up the device with the help of Nicholas Moroz at City University, March 2022

Upcoming performances