The New York-based pianist, composer and prepared piano aficionado reveals five iconic works for her instrument of choice.
Kelly Moran is one of those rare talents with anability to transcend seemingly divergent musical realms. A darling of the classical music establishment – her 2017 release Bloodroot was deemed one of the best classical music recordings of the year by the New York Times – her intricately arranged electro-acoustic compositions have also caught the ear of groundbreaking sonic innovators like Oneohtrix Point Never and long-time John Cage collaborator Margaret Leng Tan. Her latest album Ultraviolet,released to widespread acclaim by Warp Records in November extends her experiments withtraditional prepared piano into an arresting array of influences, combining elements of jazz, dream pop, classical composition and even black metal. A self-professed connaisseur of prepared piano – an altered piano with objects placed between its strings and popularised by legendary composer John Cage – we asked Kelly Moran to select five essential works for her instrument of choice.
1. John Cage –Sonatas and interludes
“These pieces single-handedly got me interested in prepared piano. I saw my college professor Stephen Rush perform them during an ‘illegal’ concert at the University of Michigan dance building (which he does at the end of each school year as a tradition) and I instantly wanted to play them. As the title suggests, they’re a series of sonatas that follow the traditional binary and ternary sonata form (separated by structured interludes), but Cage elevates this formal music structure to something completely otherworldly with his method of preparing the piano in an extremely detailed and meticulous way, resulting in piano timbres that shimmer with resonant overtones and percussive hits. The pieces have a certain delicate sensibility to them, as Cage largely avoided using the bass range of the piano in favour of the higher notes.”
Favourite track: Sonata XII
→ https://www.youtube.com/embed/agVT_kiFkI0
2. Margaret Leng-Tan – Sonic Encounters
“After my curiosity was piqued by my professor’s performance of the sonatas and interludes, I went straight to the music library and checked out this album, which was the first collection of recordings I heard that utilised prepared piano and different extended techniques. Margaret Leng-Tan directly collaborated with John Cage on some of his prepared piano works and premiered many pieces of his, and she remains one of the foremost interpreters of this kind of music. I referenced her recordings a lot when I was learning how to play Cage’s music – she’s extremely expressive and sensitive in her approach to performing. This album includes prepared piano works by John Cage and Chinese experimentalist Ge Gan-Ru, as well as pieces by George Crumb that incorporate other kinds of extended techniques (plucking, scraping the strings) to create unique and ethereal timbres from the piano.”
Favourite track:Ge Gan-Ru – Gu Yue (Ancient Music)
→ https://www.youtube.com/embed/CAJlJ86qZS0
3. Boris Berman – John Cage: Music for Prepared Piano
“Next to Margaret Leng-Tan, Boris Berman is my favourite interpreter of prepared piano music. On this record in particular, I’m really fond of his recording of “The Perilous Night” – a piece by John Cage in six movements. (My favourite movement is the last one.) Cage apparently wrote these pieces during a difficult and troubling point in his life, and the pieces definitely show a darker side of his compositional tendencies compared other works like the sonatas and interludes. This is some of his most percussive prepared piano music, as the preparations require you to use materials (like a giant eraser, weather stripping, etc) that don’t allow the notes on the piano to retain their pitch information – they sound like purely percussive hits. The interplay between the pitched notes and the percussive notes in these pieces is really fascinating to me and makes this work a standout among Cage’s catalogue.”
Favourite track: The Perilous Night (#6)
→ https://www.youtube.com/embed/AHD0RwHDmZ0
4. Hauschka – What if?
“Once you start digging into the genre of prepared piano, it doesn’t take long to stumble upon German composer Volker Bertelmann, also known as Hauschka. Whereas Cage’s works can come off as very philosophical and serious, there’s a playfulness and lightness to Hauschka’s work that is absent in lots of experimental music. His early records like “The Prepared Piano” and “Salon de Amateurs” showed me that the prepared piano had great sonic potential outside the world of academia, and it had the ability to create many different moods and emotional depth. Hauschka’s latest solo album, What If, is my favourite record of his because he expertly creates different textures by layering several prepared piano tracks, as well as incorporating various electronic manipulations to the piano sounds.”
Favourite track: My Kids Live on Mars
→ https://www.youtube.com/embed/Al9vSBsGJ9o
5. Aphex Twin – Druqks
“I read that Richard D. James’s interest in prepared piano was provoked once he heard John Cage’s prepared piano music, and he wanted to create his own interpretation of it. To make this album, RDJ prepared a Yamaha Disklavier Piano, which is a player piano that can play back MIDI information that is sent to it. RDJ used his computer to control and program the piano to create these pieces, and even though they’re not being played by a human, you wouldn’t be able to tell just from listening. While thewhole album isn’t prepared piano (there’s some unprepared piano and some purely electronic tracks), the prepared piano music is truly beautiful and stands out with its simple, lovely melodies in contrast to some of the harsher electronic pieces. Oddly enough, I didn’t know about this record until years after I had already been writing for prepared piano, but it’s quickly become one of my favourite albums that features prepared piano.”
Favourite track: Hy A Scullyas Lyf Adhagrow
→ https://www.youtube.com/embed/jjP4iKBc77U
Learn more about Kelly Moran’s Rewire 2019 performance at: Kelly Moran.
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