The Music Show is live at Canberra International Music Festival on 3 May – come join our audience!
Zubin Kanga is known as the ‘cyborg pianist’, because throughout his career he’s been using technology to expand the idea of what the piano is and what it can do. As part of his major research project, Cyborg Soloists, he has commissioned dozens of experimental works, including one by composer Tristan Coelho. Andy drops in on them both at rehearsal for Ensemble Offspring’s Lumen Machine, where they demonstrate the honeycomb-like Lumatone keyboard and a small but powerful motion-sensor ring that responds to Zubin’s hands on and off the piano. Zubin’s own piece is inspired by the late American composer Julius Eastman.
And as the Earshift Orchestra prepares to perform Julius Eastman’s expansive, ‘organic’ work Femenine, Andy heads to the Museum of Contemporary Art Australia to meet saxophonist and bandleader Jeremy Rose and percussionist Niki Johnson in front of Femenine in Nine, a series of paintings by the American artist Julie Mehretu, inspired by Eastman’s work.
Ensemble Offspring’s Lumen Machine is at ACO on the Pier in Sydney on Saturday 12 April and Newcastle Conservatorium of Music on Sunday 13 April.
The Earshift Orchestra perform Femenine at the Museum of Contemporary Art Australia in Sydney on Thursday 17 April as part of Julie Mehretu: A Transcore of the Radical Imaginatory.
Take a look at Zubin’s Lumotone:
Zubin with his motion-sensing Genki wave ring:
Niki, Andy and Jeremy in front of Julie Mehretu’s Femenine at the Museum of Contemporary Art Australia:
Music heard in the program:
Title: Gay Guerrilla
Composer: Julius Eastman
Artist: Julius Eastman, Patricia Martin, Janet Kattas, Frank Ferko (pianos)
Album: Unjust Malaise
Label: New World Records
Title: Bad Infinity
Composer: Ben Nobuto
Artist: Zubin Kanga
Album: Machine Dreams
Label: Nonclassical
Title: read-write error
Composer: Tristan Coelho
Artist: Ensemble Offspring
Album: Offspring Bites I
Label: Ensemble Offspring
Title: Femenine
Composer: Julius Eastman
Artist: S.E.M. Ensemble
Album: Femenine
Label: frozen reeds
Title: Dear Lord
Composer: Annie Brown Caldwell
Artist: Annie & the Caldwells
Album: Can’t Lose My (Soul)
Label: Luaka Bop
The Music Show is made on Gadigal and Gundungurra Country
Technical production by Simon Branthwaite and Emrys Cronin