New Music for Multiple Keyboards

for piano, toy piano, harpsichord, MIDI piano
Diana Blom and Michael Hannan, the curators and producers of this double CD of new music for multiple keyboards, were students together at the Department of Music of the University of Sydney in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Both were also studying harpsichord with Dorothy White in this period.When she was on the staff of ABC music in the mid-1970s, Diana Blom produced recordings of Michael Hannan playing Peter Sculthorpe's Koto Musics and Landscape, works that involve multitracking of extended technique piano parts.These recordings were subsequently released on a Move Records LP and later re-released on several Move Records CDs.In 2006 Diana and Michael presented concerts of a dozen or so of their solo piano works in both Sydney where Diana lives, and in Nimbin where Michael lives.The concerts included performances by them of Diana's The Green Man Dances for piano duet.This piece was included on the Multiple Keyboards project but played, on this occasion, by Jennifer MacRitchie and Pablo Puentes.Since that piano performance project, Michael and Diana have collaborated on several composition repertoire-creation projects, notably the Shadows and Silhouettes performance at the Shanghai Conservatory of Music in 2010.This project, initially involving Australian composers writing piano pieces influenced by Chinese culture, was eventually taken up by Italian pianist, Antonietta Loffredo, resulting in the Shadows and Silhouettes CD (Wirripang, Wirr 047, 2012) which includes Chinese culture-inspired works from Australia, Italy, Singapore and Malaysia.The idea of the "Multiple Keyboards" project sprang from these earlier experiences.In discussion, Diana and Michael felt they would like to create an album of new works that fitted the general principle of two or more keyboardists playing on one or more keyboard instruments.The instrumentation is dominated by pianos and toy pianos (and combinations thereof), but there is one work for multi-tracked harpsichords and another for multi-tracked MIDI electric pianos.
Wirr 089

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DISC 1
Cloudcatcher I (Michael Hannan)
1.  i  Flight
2.  ii  Meditation
3. iii Vibration
4.  iv  Birdsong
5.  Music Battuta: Double Toy Piano Étude for One Soloist No. 438 (Andrián Pertout)
6.  Two Chinese Folk Songs - "Little Cabbage" (Diana Blom)
7.  Impromobile - Take 2 (Michael Hannan)
8.  Sunshower (Felicity Martin)
9.  Two Chinese Folk Songs - "Fisherman's Joy" (Diana Blom)
10. Calder's Surprise - Take 2 (Diana Blom)
11. Drawing Firewheels (Diana Blom)
Landscape/Soundscape I (Michael Hannan)
12. i  13.  ii  14.  iii
15.  Braided River (Diana Blom)
DISC 2
1.   Freefall (Diana Blom)
2.   Holding Masks (Paul Smith)- 
3.   After the rain (Diana Blom)
4. Impromobile - Take 2 (Michael Hannan)
Riff Madness III (Michael Hannan)
5.   i   6.   ii   7.   iii 
8.  The Greenmann Dance (Diana Blom)
9.  Calder's Surprise - Take 1 (Diana Blom)
10. Clutter (Paul Smith)
11. River Circles (Diana Blom
12. Landscape/Soundscape II (Michael Hannan)