Yamaha Education News

Pianocircus using Yamaha CP33 stage pianos

Pictured here: Pianocircus performing new music for six pianos at the prestigious new music and arts venue, King's Place, in London in June 2009. Among the evening's premières was the ensemble's first outing with its six new Yamaha CP33 stage pianos

The cutting-edge contemporary six-piano ensemble, pianocircus, has chosen Yamaha's CP33 digital stage pianos as the instruments it will take on tour and will also use in its extensive education programmes. The move marks a new partnership for Yamaha and pianocircus, which both organisations hope to develop further.

Pianocircus was formed twenty years ago to perform Steve Reich's 'Six Pianos' and has since created a repertoire of over one hundred works. Most of these have been written specially for the ensemble and include pieces by some of the planet's most outstanding contemporary classical composers, including Kevin Volans, Graham Fitkin, Brian Eno, Louis Andriessen, Erkki-Sven Tüür, Terry Riley, Nikki Yeoh and Heiner Goebbels.

Pianocircus' repertoire spans an enormous breadth, from minimalism (Steve Reich/Terry Riley, et al), through some very challenging contemporary writing to some very ethereal and beautifuly contemplative pieces. Their performances include music that may be quite challenging and not an easy listen, alongside repertoire drawing its inspiration from rock, jazz and classical music.

Their music can take you on wild journeys of the imagination and often incoporates multimedia and multi-speaker sound systems alongside live electronics, to take you there. So, for concert-goers who are ready for something different and very cool, pianocircus always has some surprises! Try a search for 'pianocircus' on YouTube to get a flavour of some of the music - their other-worldy performance of Duncan MacLeod's haunting 'Ellipsis', for example.

Pianocircus is delighted with its new CP33 keyboards, which replace their 15-year-old (non-Yamaha) predecessors. David Appleton, a member of the ensemble, told us: "It's nice to explore how much keyboard technology has come on! With our old instruments we were forced to use samplers attached to each keyboard to get the sound we wanted." The sound quality and control of the CP33s means that this can now be done entirely with the instruments' on-board sounds. Some of the repertoire demands alternative tunings and the CP33's microtuning facility was put to very good use in their King's Place concert.

Pianocircus' next CD, 'Skin and Wire' is a collaboration with legendary drummer, Bill Bruford, and will be available in September 2009.

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(Posted June 2009)