Not that there’s anything wrong with the piano as we know it, but internationally celebrated sound sculptor, composer and inventor Trimpin has never been one to simply accept things as they are. Now, the Seattle-based Trimpin will be bringing his latest innovation to Victoria this year 2012 with a project titled (CanonX+4:33=100).
Trimpin in his Seattle studio (photo: Kristy Farkas)
In collaboration with Open Space and Dr. Andrew Schloss (head of our Music and Computer Science program), a team of emerging sound engineers, musicians and visual artists from UVic will have the opportunity to work directly under Trimpin’s mentorship while assisting with the creation and installation of the work, scheduled to debut at Open Space on March 16.
With 2012 marking the centennial celebration of some of the most influential composers of the last century—namely John Cage and Conlon Nancarrow—(CanonX+4:33=100) will celebrate a continuum and extension of the important work of both composers. Combining ancient concepts and methods with the latest in digital technology, Trimpin will give new life to an array of transformed abandoned pianos, by constructing visually dynamic and aurally stunning acoustic and electroacoustic sculptures and automatons out of their carcasses.
“The pianos will be ‘prepared’ with mechanical actuators—small robotic devices to play the piano strings in a way which both composers, more than a half century ago, started to experiment with, compose, and perform,” Trimpin explains. “With the tools of today’s technologies, this experimentation can be extended to the next level of investigation.”
Detail of (CanonX+4.33=100). (photo: Kristy Farkas)
Believing in our capacity to experience sound visually, Trimpin will accentuate this concept with the use of video cameras and sensors to translate movement and colour into gestures that activate the instruments.
Trimpin will visit UVic from January 17 to 20 to introduce the project, conduct workshops with participants, and host a free screening of Peter Esmonde’s 2009 documentary, TRIMPIN: the sound of invention (8pm January 18 in Visual Arts room A146, featuring the music of the Kronos Quartet). He will then return in March to install (CanonX+4:33=100) at Open Space, as well as present an artist talk and perform with the UVic collective, MISTIC. Until the close of the installation on April 28, the UVic team will lead demonstrations and workshops, as well as have the opportunity to develop unique methodologies for activating and “performing” the installation as an enormous musical instrument.
Trimpin’s “IF VI WAS XI: Roots and Branches” (photo: EMP Museum)
Enormous instruments are nothing new to Trimpin, who is perhaps best known in the Pacific Northwest for his towering instrumental sculpture “IF VI WAS IX: Roots and Branches,” which dominates the main level of Seattle’s Experience Music Project Museum. Constructed from more than 500 musical instruments and 30 computers, “Roots and Branches” offers a dynamic, engaging and historical journey into the origins and evolution of American popular music—thanks to the earphone-equipped computer touch-screens that guide visitors through various sound permutations the sculpture is capable of realizing.
After years of formal training in brass and woodwind performance, the German-born Trimpin completed an apprenticeship in electrical engineering and later earned a Master’s degree in social pedagogy. As he explains on the Experience Music Project website, “I had to study what goes on physically when different brains are working. I needed all this information to get to the point where I could execute my ideas. It wasn’t available in literature, because none of these books existed. So from the beginning I always had to do it on my own.”
One of the most stimulating and inventive forces in music today, Trimpin’s (CanonX+4:33=100) will skew your everyday assumptions about sound and technology and engage your senses of perception, surprise, and joy, in an extraordinary and intricate audio-visual experience unlike any other.
—Kristy Farkas and John Threlfall, with files from the EMP Museum
Don’t miss the free screening of TRIMPIN: The Sound of Invention—featuring Trimpin himself as host—at 8pm Wednesday January 18 in room A146 of UVic’s Visual Arts building.