'Expanded Piano'

Imagine a piano taking on the dimensions of a concert hall and each one of the audience members experiencing the work as though they were inside the instrument. Is it possible for a musical work to simulate the experience of being inside a piano for each and every member of the audience? The answer is provided by award winning, new generation, Greek composer Stavros Gasparatos, well known for his theatre music and film scores, with his work 'Expanded Piano'.

This installation – musical piece is inspired by the idea of the 'Prepared Piano': a mechanically altered piano that was made famous by John Cage and others, who inserted screws, springs and various other objects into the piano strings, distorting its sound.

With 'Expanded Piano' Stavros Gasparatos is working on and further developing this idea by transforming the piano into an original electronic form. How does he achieve this? An acoustic piano is wired with various types of microphones which are placed on its body, its strings and its mechanism. With the help of a computer the signal from the microphone is processed, live, and then split into a surround multichannel installation, in order to create the feeling of being “inside” the piano for the audience.

As the artist explains, “the 'Expanded Piano' musical piece and the performance functions as an auditory magnifying glass which starts audience members off on an auditory journey inside the instrument'.

The piece was first presented at the EMPAC Institute, which is well established in experimental art circles, while the album was released in 2015 by Ad Noiseam.

Stavros Gasparatos is the composer and sound artist. He mainly composes music for theatre, film and dance. Since 2000 his music has “dressed” more than 100 productions (National Theatre, Athens & Epidaurus Festival, House of Letters & Arts, ACH, the School of Performance at Ryerson University in Toronto, London International Mime Festival, Dock 11 in Berlin, De Wagg in Amsterdam, Macao Cultural Centre in China, Villette Cultural Park in Paris, and others). The 'Rehearsal' album is also available, while in 2009 he composed music for the multimedia exhibition at the inauguration of the New Acropolis Museum (directed by Athina Tsangari).

Among other awards, he has also received the New Artist Award (Union of Greek Critics for Drama and Music, 2009) and the Best Original Music Score (Hellenic Film Academy for the film 'Blood' by D. Karanastasis, 2013).

Project contributors
Concept – composition – programming – execution: Stavros Gasparatos Sound Engineer: Alexis Gikas
Technical consultant, programming & sound installation supervision: Alexandros Tsilfidis
Lighting design: Sakis Birbilis