An out-of-body experience 'Inside The 100 Foot Piano'
This exhibition is all it purports to be. The third sound exhibition from An-Ting Chung is a mammoth sound sculpture. The aptly named 'Inside The 100 Foot Piano' takes the listener right inside the piano. And its way more than your average surround sound.
Sponsored partly by the National Culture and Arts Foundation in Taiwan this 'sound sculpture' has just concluded at Legacy Recording Studios, Studio A509. 509 W. 38th Street between 10th & 11th Ave in NYC. Chung has transformed the entire studio into one giant piano and the visitor enjoys the notes from within.
The 88 notes of a piano are represented by 88 loudspeakers arranged in an acoustical manner over a room, which is 280 feet in perimeter. The musical notes that flow through the air are a digital recreation of Bach's Goldberg Variations, which was performed by pianist Glenn Gould in 1955. Zenpeh Studios designed the technology that has been the driving force behind the entire effort.
Ms. Chung has described the endeavor as the molding of music around a space. She envisions the notes as individual tangible elements, with substance and mass that can be arrayed into an energized sonic structure throughout the giant Legacy studio space. And she has been able to do that quite successfully.
The entire performance has been way beyond normal surround sound experience. Its been like the audience has actually lived the performance. The three-dimensional sound experience from inside the 100 Foot piano has to be lived through to be believed.
