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The Phoenix Project:
Art in the Time of Climate Emergency Sunday, November 14th BodyVox Theater, Portland, Oregon featuring - The world premiere of "All Imaginable Actions Must Be Taken", composed for my newest, multi-keyboard experimental instrument "Chimaera" - Brave new works for Skeleton Piano: "There is No Away" and "Anthropocene (Legacy)" - Mini-documentary film: The Making of The Transmogrified Instruments! - The world premiere of "The Battle Cry of the Phoenix" for Skeleton Piano and an army of Transmogrified Instruments: 15 larger-than-life playable trash sound sculptures designed, created and played by the students of Jennifer Wright Piano Studio! Generously supported by the Regional Arts and Culture Council (RACC) and the Music Teachers National Association (MTNA) |
All Imaginable Actions Must Be Taken for Chimaera (2021)
One of the explorations in the climate change-related work I have been doing for the past thee years, the piece "All Imaginable Actions Must Be Taken" for Chimaera received its world premiere in November 2021 at my carbon-negative show "The Phoenix Project: Art in the Time of Climate Emergency", supported in part by the Regional Arts and Culture Council and Music Teachers National Association.
400 trees were planted in forest gardens in Sub-Saharan Africa through Trees for the Future to offset the carbon costs of producing the show, including the carbon costs the audience incurred to travel to and from the concert.
The Chimaera is a triple-manual, experimental keyboard instrument and sound machine. It is comprised of several dismantled/prepared toy pianos, two “wings” of resonant metal rods, and an ever-evolving encrustation of found metal objects. Its strange, otherworldly sounds and its post-apocalyptic-junk-creature nature are fitting expressions of the innumerable painful realizations that have come to me over time about the reality and totality of the global climate crisis.
It is my fervent wish that humankind could be better than history has proven us to be. I want to believe that we will not continue this path of burning ourselves to the ground and taking all beautiful and wondrous things with us, but I struggle to see how that is still possible, even if all imaginable actions are taken immediately, wholly, and universally. The counter-clockwise motions that surface in various ways throughout the piece reference my unrealistic yet deep desire to turn back time.
One of the explorations in the climate change-related work I have been doing for the past thee years, the piece "All Imaginable Actions Must Be Taken" for Chimaera received its world premiere in November 2021 at my carbon-negative show "The Phoenix Project: Art in the Time of Climate Emergency", supported in part by the Regional Arts and Culture Council and Music Teachers National Association.
400 trees were planted in forest gardens in Sub-Saharan Africa through Trees for the Future to offset the carbon costs of producing the show, including the carbon costs the audience incurred to travel to and from the concert.
The Chimaera is a triple-manual, experimental keyboard instrument and sound machine. It is comprised of several dismantled/prepared toy pianos, two “wings” of resonant metal rods, and an ever-evolving encrustation of found metal objects. Its strange, otherworldly sounds and its post-apocalyptic-junk-creature nature are fitting expressions of the innumerable painful realizations that have come to me over time about the reality and totality of the global climate crisis.
It is my fervent wish that humankind could be better than history has proven us to be. I want to believe that we will not continue this path of burning ourselves to the ground and taking all beautiful and wondrous things with us, but I struggle to see how that is still possible, even if all imaginable actions are taken immediately, wholly, and universally. The counter-clockwise motions that surface in various ways throughout the piece reference my unrealistic yet deep desire to turn back time.
Rush Hour 2019
In collaboration with Heidi Duckler Dance Theater NW
The world premiere of "Punxsutawney Blues" for Skeleton Piano, fixed media, and auxiliary percussion
With dancers Snubb and Kya Bliss
NW Marine ArtWorks, Portland, OR
May 18, 2019 (2 shows)
In collaboration with Heidi Duckler Dance Theater NW
The world premiere of "Punxsutawney Blues" for Skeleton Piano, fixed media, and auxiliary percussion
With dancers Snubb and Kya Bliss
NW Marine ArtWorks, Portland, OR
May 18, 2019 (2 shows)
Waters of the World
With Heidi Duckler Dance Theater NW
A complete show of new, site-specific music for Skeleton Piano, electronics, toy piano and multiple music boxes, including the suite "Waiting for the Package"
Composed for/in The Fair-Haired Dumbbell Building, Portland, OR
June 15-16 & 22-23, 2018
With Heidi Duckler Dance Theater NW
A complete show of new, site-specific music for Skeleton Piano, electronics, toy piano and multiple music boxes, including the suite "Waiting for the Package"
Composed for/in The Fair-Haired Dumbbell Building, Portland, OR
June 15-16 & 22-23, 2018
“Innovative…wonderfully experimental…Her exploration of the creative potential of the instrument [her ‘destroyed’ piano] brought the whole performance full circle—an amazing collaboration among dancers, musician, choreographer, and lighting designer.
- Elizabeth Whelan, Oregon Arts Watch
- Elizabeth Whelan, Oregon Arts Watch
(Dis)Connect
With Burn After Listening
The world premiere of "Incognita" for Skeleton Piano, projected video poem, and body armor
Augmented viewing possible with a QR code scanner app
Disjecta, Portland, OR
March 2018
With Burn After Listening
The world premiere of "Incognita" for Skeleton Piano, projected video poem, and body armor
Augmented viewing possible with a QR code scanner app
Disjecta, Portland, OR
March 2018
Skeleton Piano Dances
With Agnieszka Laska Dancers
The first performances of the complete 45-minute suite "Obscure Terrain" for Skeleton Piano and electronics.
In a dream-come-true collaboration, the Skeleton Piano performed center stage, surrounded by the inspired modern choreography of the Agnieszka Laska Dancers and super-projected video art by renowned filmmaker Takafumi Uehara.
Seven movements of wild and unforgettable music that could never be recreated on another instrument!
With dancers Allie Fahsholz, Karissa Dean, Sharon Lane, Lauren Sprague, Sophie Stensvad and Merlin Benneth.
Bodyvox, Portland, OR 2015
Made possible with the generous support of the Regional Arts and Culture Council (RACC)
With Agnieszka Laska Dancers
The first performances of the complete 45-minute suite "Obscure Terrain" for Skeleton Piano and electronics.
In a dream-come-true collaboration, the Skeleton Piano performed center stage, surrounded by the inspired modern choreography of the Agnieszka Laska Dancers and super-projected video art by renowned filmmaker Takafumi Uehara.
Seven movements of wild and unforgettable music that could never be recreated on another instrument!
With dancers Allie Fahsholz, Karissa Dean, Sharon Lane, Lauren Sprague, Sophie Stensvad and Merlin Benneth.
Bodyvox, Portland, OR 2015
Made possible with the generous support of the Regional Arts and Culture Council (RACC)
OBSCURE TERRAIN for amplified/prepared Skeleton Piano & effects (2014-2015)
by Jennifer Wright
Jennifer Wright, Skeleton Piano /// choreography by Agnieszka Laska /// video art by Takafumi Uehara
1. Intro: The Map is Not the Terrain
2. Chant for the Unknown
3. Our Bodies Are the Real Continents
4. Terra Firma
5. Dislocated/Suffocated
6. As the Valley Explodes/No Spoken Words
7. Coda: Ozymandias
OBSCURE TERRAIN and the Skeleton Piano came into the world together, each creating the other. The project began as an exploration in discarding the unnecessary and opening up new sonic possibilities, a piratical hijacking of tradition. Rescued from the landfill and stripped down by sledgehammer, crowbar and chisel to its barest essentials, the Skeleton Piano has been reincarnated as a wildly capable sculptural sound machine. Unfettered by external trappings, its inner workings are laid bare to direct contact of all kinds with all manner of external materials. This unprecedented freedom of attack allows wild approaches to acoustic sound production, unearthing an orchestral range of unexpected and captivating sounds created with full-body performance techniques on all parts of the instrument.
The Skeleton Piano challenges every notion of what a keyboard instrument - or, indeed a pianist - is or could be. It requires its performer to evolve past traditional pianism and embody exotic extra-musical demands. As its systematic destruction demolished barriers and externalized the internal, it became a meditation on intrinsic meaning and a metaphor for the most universal of human ambitions: the search for self. As OBSCURE TERRAIN moves through terra incognita, it leaves behind a ghostly map of the wilderness of the human heart.
Each of the seven movements explores a unique capability of the Skeleton Piano, many of which could never (safely) be recreated elsewhere. Every time it is moved or played, it changes and falls apart a little more, its sound evolving. With every fantastical noise that is coaxed from it, it reminds us that, like all art and life, it too one day shall pass into eternity - like the ancient Egyptian King of Kings Ozymandias, who gave his name to the last movement. Deeply musical and in turns lyrical, striking, shocking and fiercely rhythmic, the soundscape of Obscure Terrain is amplified and occasionally layered with electronic delay effects. It owes much of its energetic inspirations to U2 in their early days, before they chopped down the joshua tree.
by Jennifer Wright
Jennifer Wright, Skeleton Piano /// choreography by Agnieszka Laska /// video art by Takafumi Uehara
1. Intro: The Map is Not the Terrain
2. Chant for the Unknown
3. Our Bodies Are the Real Continents
4. Terra Firma
5. Dislocated/Suffocated
6. As the Valley Explodes/No Spoken Words
7. Coda: Ozymandias
OBSCURE TERRAIN and the Skeleton Piano came into the world together, each creating the other. The project began as an exploration in discarding the unnecessary and opening up new sonic possibilities, a piratical hijacking of tradition. Rescued from the landfill and stripped down by sledgehammer, crowbar and chisel to its barest essentials, the Skeleton Piano has been reincarnated as a wildly capable sculptural sound machine. Unfettered by external trappings, its inner workings are laid bare to direct contact of all kinds with all manner of external materials. This unprecedented freedom of attack allows wild approaches to acoustic sound production, unearthing an orchestral range of unexpected and captivating sounds created with full-body performance techniques on all parts of the instrument.
The Skeleton Piano challenges every notion of what a keyboard instrument - or, indeed a pianist - is or could be. It requires its performer to evolve past traditional pianism and embody exotic extra-musical demands. As its systematic destruction demolished barriers and externalized the internal, it became a meditation on intrinsic meaning and a metaphor for the most universal of human ambitions: the search for self. As OBSCURE TERRAIN moves through terra incognita, it leaves behind a ghostly map of the wilderness of the human heart.
Each of the seven movements explores a unique capability of the Skeleton Piano, many of which could never (safely) be recreated elsewhere. Every time it is moved or played, it changes and falls apart a little more, its sound evolving. With every fantastical noise that is coaxed from it, it reminds us that, like all art and life, it too one day shall pass into eternity - like the ancient Egyptian King of Kings Ozymandias, who gave his name to the last movement. Deeply musical and in turns lyrical, striking, shocking and fiercely rhythmic, the soundscape of Obscure Terrain is amplified and occasionally layered with electronic delay effects. It owes much of its energetic inspirations to U2 in their early days, before they chopped down the joshua tree.
Skeleton Piano Dances
Further performances of the show went live at Polish Hall in Portland and at the Polish Festival for two years, all with recorded music.
Polish Hall, 2015-2016
Further performances of the show went live at Polish Hall in Portland and at the Polish Festival for two years, all with recorded music.
Polish Hall, 2015-2016
Crazy Jane: Inner Nature
In collaboration with the Crazy Jane Composers
The first two movements of "Obscure Terrain" for Skeleton Piano and electronics.
Lincoln Hall Room 75, Portland State University, Portland, OR 2014
In collaboration with the Crazy Jane Composers
The first two movements of "Obscure Terrain" for Skeleton Piano and electronics.
Lincoln Hall Room 75, Portland State University, Portland, OR 2014
Piano Bizarro
The world debut of the Skeleton Piano!
The first two movements of "Obscure Terrain" for Skeleton Piano and electronics.
Michelle's Pianos, Portland, OR 2014
The world debut of the Skeleton Piano!
The first two movements of "Obscure Terrain" for Skeleton Piano and electronics.
Michelle's Pianos, Portland, OR 2014
You can find a lot more info about many of these projects at my sister website, jenniferwrightpianostudio.com!