“21 Pianos” is a site(s)-specific interaction with an extremely out of tune piano and twenty-one towns and cities in Minnesota. The project will take place over two month-long trips, followed by a period of composing and compiling. Finally the project will be documented in a book that includes two CDs.
Conceptually the work is about entropy, how things fall apart, and how people think about it. It is also about transformation, conscious or otherwise.
Working with a “ship’s piano” (small, with only 67 keys) in extreme decay, Horvitz and a visual collaborator will travel with the piano to create mini, interactive performances. Voluntary performers will be able to play pieces from memory or improvise, which will then be recorded and visually documented.
During and after the residency, Horvitz will use the recordings to compose a set 21 pieces of electronic music. Piece #1 will only use audio from “location #1. Piece #2 would use locations #1 and #2. Piece #21 would use audio from all 21 locations. One CD will contain edited versions of the original audio; the other CD will be the compositions themselves. The CDs will be part of a book that includes photos and narrative.