Grand Piano Gebrüder Stingl from 1916.
After more than a century, the piano is in the garden; the sun shines on it and
rain falls on it. The piano cannot be tuned. Some keys
work only partially, some not at all. It is Broken Piano.
The first Pieces for Broken Piano were recorded on
this piano in 2021 and became part of the
Fluxus
editions
Stolen Symphony (2023) and
Keep Together (2024).
The pieces for this edition were written and provided
by
Terry Riley and
Milan Knížák. Broken Piano, which
was acquired by the
Opening Performance Orchestra
to make live and studio recordings, was the focus of
both volumes of this edition between 2021 and 2023.
Compositions for Broken Piano intended for Fluxus
editions were recorded by Czech pianist Miroslav
Beinhauer. During this time, other new works for
Broken Piano were written by a variety of Fluxus
and non-Fluxus composers. In the spring of 2022,
the Opening Performance Orchestra and Broken
Piano participated in an event hosted by Mieko Shiomi.
This was a new version of her early work Spatial Poem:
it was a moving event, documentation of which was presented at the Aichi Triennale 2022 in Tokyo.
During this performative event, consisting of moving
any object, Broken Piano was moved from the village Vyzlovka to Unhost, where the SONO music studio
is located. It is in the SONO studio that the new compositions for Broken Piano were recorded, written
by Terry Riley,
Philip Glass, Milan Knížák, Gordon
Monahan, Elliott Sharp, Milan Gustar, Yoon-Ji Lee,
which form the content of this album.
All the new compositions were recorded by pianist
Miroslav Beinhauer. Broken Piano is currently lying
in the open air in Prague and is subject to gradual
decay. A broken but famous piano.
Miroslav Beinhauer (born 1993) is a pianist and player of the sixth-tone harmonium player, an instrument conceived by the Czech pioneer of microtonal music Alois Hába in the 1930s.
Beinhauer focuses on contemporary music and the music of the 20th century. In the role of soloist, he collaborated with composers such as
Phill Niblock, Klaus Lang, Bernhard Lang, Georg Friedrich Haas, Marc Sabat or
Petr Bakla, with festivals in Europe and in the USA like musikprotokoll, Sound Plasma Festival, Strings of Autumn, Ostrava Days, Moravian Autumn, Janáček Brno, Music Forum Hradec Králové, MusicOlomouc, MicroFest, Konvergencie or Gentse Feesten, and orchestras and ensembles including the PKF – Prague Philharmonia, Brno Philharmonic, Janacek Philharmonic Ostrava, Hradec Králové Philharmonic Orchestra, Moravian Philharmonic Orchestra Olomouc, Brno Contemporary Orchestra, Opava Chamber Orchestra, Kubin Quartet, S.E.M. Ensemble or String Noise. Sought-after chamber musician, Beinhauer is member of the international Ostravská Banda ensemble (collaboration with conductors such as Bruno Ferrandis, Johannes Kalitzke, Petr Kotík, JIří Rožeň or Owen Underhill). He has been involved in numerous studio productions, including album recordings of piano music by Petr Bakla or
Milan Knížák. Beinhauer also regularly records for the Czech Radio.
