Imagine a piano in the middle of the woods having to weather a week of heavy rain, overnight temperatures and bright sunshine. Leaves and pine needles are scattered all over it. Some of the piano keys have also come off and there is graffiti scribbled all over. You would think how such conditions will still enable the piano to be use. Well, this is something that Niki Conraths, a dance instructor at Interlochen, wanted to figure out. She wanted to see if the environment would play a part in affecting a dance work.
The concept came about from Niki and some of her fellow faculty members at first. However, they still had to find a piano for the performance. “… and then we found a donor in Traverse City who actually donated this piano to us, and his family, and we just put an ad in Craigslist and in 24 hours we had it,” she explained.
In fact, Niki mentioned that she was inspired by Brazilian visual artist, Christina Oitichica, to come up with this concept. She recounts, “She buries her canvases in the Amazon for 9 to 12 months under rocks and the water and then she reclaims them so (I) started thinking what I could do with dance, how could I age a dance?” According to Matt Schlomer, the Band Director, the elements and decay that the piano has gone through will force the performers to listen to the music more carefully.
The piece that will be played for the performance is the first prelude in Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier. Ariela Bohrod, a student of Interlochen, will have the honour of performing the piece. Ariela stated that the experience has made her realise what a luxury it is to play good instruments. “You know, I’ve never really had to play a piano that I’m not quite sure day-by-day how it’s going to sound. I mean, I’ve played on certain pianos that are out of tune or maybe they have one or two notes sticking but, the entire 88-key register (laughs) is something very different but it’s helping me out with being able to adjust to new things and being able to just really play no matter what situation I’m put in,” she explained. For the full story, do check it out here.
At Piano Lessons SG, we want our students to appreciate the piano at hand. As we all know, pianos do not come at a cheap price. Hence, we have come up with a scheme to allow students to Rent A Piano and try it out before committing to purchase it.