Piano Circus Blog Post

by Ben Roberts

Professor Stephen Rush’s performance, Piano Circus, was an intriguing and stimulating experience to enjoy. By rethinking the way an audience can experience a piano recital, Rush was able to augment our perceptions and encounters of the pieces played. Starting with the idea of the way we remember a “normal” concert in snippets of time and musical ideas, he was able to flesh it out in a way that brings the very act of remembrance to the real-time performance itself. Using short, randomly played sections of prerecorded pieces played over loudspeakers, he was able to compliment and contrast the performance, with the same performance pieces. Arguing that piano recitals are “stupid,” Professor Rush sets out to challenge the idea of them, as well as our understanding of, experience of, and comfort with them.

The technology in this performance was vital in realizing its conception. In collaboration with Professor Leith Campbell, Rush created a MAX patch that would select each prerecorded sample at random and play it through the speakers of the studio. The patch would also pan the samples throughout the speaker array. This meant that each person in the audience had a different experience. For example, if you were sitting on one side of the piano, and the sample was playing out of the speakers on the opposite end, you were most likely unable to hear that sample, therefore being endowed with a different experience. Without a patch that did these actions flawlessly, and continuously, this type of performance and effectiveness would not be possible. Also, the volume of these samples was extremely important. Rush playing piano was the loudest sonority in the room, which meant you were able to tell exactly what piece he was playing, and follow it fairly well. The samples however, were played at a slightly ducked volume, which left the audience members hearing it as if it was inside their own head, juxtaposing what Rush was playing live. As the samples moved from speaker to speaker, the perceived loudness changed and shifted, creating a very interesting and never-stagnant performance experience.

Personally, I truly enjoyed this show. The parts that caught my interest the most, where when samples naturally and unexpectedly complimented the pieces being played. For example, at one moment during the performance, Professor Rush began the second verse of a song, and at that exact moment, the prerecorded sample of the very same song began to play the first verse. They lined up in a way that sounded like a call and response. Another example is when the atonal sonorities of the experimental pieces complimented one another, which in theory should never happened, but happened quite a few times. These wonderful “awe-inspiring” moments, and others like it, where what made the performance the spectacle that it was.

Professors Stephen Rush and Leith Campbell where able to create a performance that challenged the typical ideas of recitals and concerts, while at the same time, driving the very experience of attending and remembering them into the conceptual nature of the recital itself.