The concert “Spectacular Automatic Instruments” is entirely dedicated to the intriguing interaction between humans, machines and music. At the centre are two exceptional instruments: the microtonal Fokker organ and the Yamaha Disklavier, a self-playing grand piano controllable by computer. This unique combination of acoustic tradition and digital control offers composers a wide range of possibilities to shape musical ideas that lie beyond the scope of conventional performance practice. In this concert, several composers present new works written especially for these instruments, some of which are partly controlled live by the composers via laptop, blurring the line between performance and programming.
This morning opens with Study No. 21 (“Canon X”) by Conlon Nancarrow (1912–1997), a pioneer in the field of automated piano music through his use of prepared player pianos. In this brilliant tempo canon, part of his revolutionary series Studies for Player Piano, two voices move in opposite directions, accelerate and decelerate until they cross and exchange roles—a form of counterpoint that can only be realised with a mechanically perfectly functioning instrument. This work emphasises Nancarrow’s fascination with counterpoint and forms a fitting start to a morning in which technology, composition and sound come together in a spectacular celebration of automatic instruments and their musical potential.
A collaboration of the Conlon Collective—consisting of Boris Bezemer, Christina Viola Oorebeek and Daniel Schorno—results in a new work entitled Far Fly Sparkle!. This piece combines the Fokker organ and the Yamaha Disklavier in an intriguing fusion of sound worlds, through the use of live performance, live electronics and fixed media. By combining the strings and pipes of these instruments in various combinations and fragments, ‘sound clouds’ arise that vary from dense and solidified to transparent and fleeting.
This morning includes a new work (Witches Road) by Boyan Montero and Boris Bezemer, who themselves provide the control of the instruments. In this composition, the characteristic properties of both the Fokker organ and the Disklavier are highlighted, with the two instruments alternating and complementing one another in terms of sound in an intimate, almost playful dialogue.
Next follows the new work Koraal for solo Fokker organ by Janco Verduin, in which an engaging fusion of human and programmed performances arises. A short but impressive piece for solo Disklavier is Manifesto [Disklavier Rework] by Diogo Carrico. In this work, which originates from Carrico’s first encounter with the Disklavier during an artistic residency in 2023, familiar sounds are distorted and transformed into unprecedented musical landscapes. The piece makes use of sensors to transmit the pianist’s hand movements immediately to the computer.
This is followed by a selection from Fossils I–VII by Arnold Marinissen, a work in which the Disklavier, in combination with live electronics, processes the sounds of the Disklavier in real time in ways that evoke processes of fossilisation, although they do not literally imitate them. Each part sketches a fascinating image: from crumbling fossils that disappear into the sea or are picked up by a beachcomber, to mysterious footprints and objects that have fossilised in amber. The duo Off<>zz—consisting of pianist Anne Veinberg and live coder Felipe Ignacio Noriega Alcaraz—presents the new work Dance of the Klaviers, in which the Carrillo piano, the Fokker organ and the Disklavier are brought (into sound) together. Veinberg, since 2013 the regular performer of the Carrillo piano, adds a distinctive timbre to the spectrum of sound with her playing, while Noriega controls the other instruments in real time through live coding, thereby shaping the course of the music.