Piano Day

CONSERVATORY PLAYS!
Piano Days
Wednesday 27 March from 6 pm to 8 pm

Especially for Piano Day, SLAC/Conservatory talents shine at the piano in the entrance hall from 6pm to 8pm.

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International Piano Day, an initiative of pianist-composer Nils Frahm, will once again be a celebration full of compelling modern and classical piano sounds.

• POLTROCK

May 2022. In an abandoned hotel in Aulus-Les-Bains, a mountain village in the French Pyrenees, an old piano can be found. Poltrock takes a seat at the instrument and casually hits a few notes. During the five-month creative process, started in this godforsaken place, Poltrock tests his limits. He sets out to record his four pianos in a raw and honest way and then edits them with tape effects, cassette loops and old analogue effect devices. The melodies are intimate and compelling, the sound is confrontational and intense.

In his search for a new sound, Poltrock also calls on the help of the Sun*Sun*Sun String Orkestra, who are friends of the house and have already shared the stage and studio with Einstürzende Neubauten, John Cale, Belle & Sebastian, Cinematic Orchestra and others. This quartet manages to put Poltrock’s fragile, intimate and whispering ideas on tape. The quartet shines on Ceint (Aller), Bray Dunes and Belfast (Louis XXIV), but also doesn’t mind playing a serving and symbiotic role with the piano.

Five years after the acclaimed trilogy Mutes, Moods & Machines, they are now releasing the duology Aulus I (May 2023) and Aulus II (November 2023). Aulus I is the soundtrack to a non-existent dystopian film with long, drawn-out soundscapes dominated by strings. Four pianos take centre stage in Aulus II: sometimes their sound is sweet, hopeful and soothing, other times it’s erratic and moody, but each time it’s intense and honest.

In 2019, Poltrock won the Music Industry Award (MIA) for Best Musician.

• Carlos Cipa – Ourselves, as we are
  (replacement program for From Bach to Rammstein - Duo Játékok)

Young German pianist and composer Carlos Cipa made his debut with The monarch and the viceroy (2012), followed by All your life you walk and Correlations (on 11 pianos), among others. Characteristic of his compositions is his pared-down piano playing: often dreamy, sometimes intense, but always elegant.

His new album Ourselves, as we are was released in 2023 and started from a simple idea: one room, one piano, one pianist/composer. Cipa sees the nine short piano pieces, created in just a few weeks, as a kind of “zooming in on the object of contemplation, and in this case oneself”. In the process, Cipa also took a different conceptual approach: to play as quietly as possible, letting both silence and the ‘disturbing’ mechanical sounds of the piano become part of his music.

In our world of remakes and pieces for high-reach mood playlists, this approach is perhaps one of the few remaining ways to create art: to reveal our true selves. Radically personal. Radically intimate. Radically honest. Ourselves, as we are.

• Hanakiv

If you are a lover of soft and thoughtful piano music, you will be pleased to meet Hanakiv. The young Estonian composer and pianist's contemporary-classical style is sure to appeal to fans from Arvo Pärt to Hania Rani.

Debut Goodbyes just appeared on the fantastic label Gondwana (see Hania Rani, Portico Quartet, GoGo Penguin, STUFF, among others) references Björk's Vespertine and the work of Tim Hecker, Kara-Lis Coverdale, Erkki-Sven Tüür and Aphex Twin, as well as her own cultural heritage.

Music, especially choral music, plays an important role in Estonian culture and traditions, but Hanakiv also draws on her love of nature - the beautiful Estonian coast and forests - and her time in Iceland. However, it was moving to London that gave her the freedom to create her own music. With success!

More info

conservatory students: Matiz Bauwens, Tobias Verschaeren, David Van Doceren, Jolien Clou, Astrid Heymans, Thomas Van Boxel, Ian Choy, Roos Maes, Olivia Vanbeckevoort, Larissa Brans, Sam Karapian, Lea Ozden, Sophie Tan, Elmo Bertocchi, Thelma Serneels, Lars Oneto, Cédric Delvaux, Thelma en Lea, Eline Vanbeckevoort en Clara-Cenxi Adelman, Rik Bossens en Ann Sluys, Maarten Germau, Marjolein van der Aa, Yun QI Li, Hannah Douibi, Nora Bouwens, Ida Wu, Anouk Vranckx, Quinten Vansina