Pianist, composer and technologist Zubin Kanga performs a set of dreamlike, hallucinatory works created out of his Cyborg Soloists project in a late-night event.
Conjuring futuristic sound worlds, he combines the piano with synthesisers, sensors and cutting-edge digital instruments.
Tansy Davies’ Star-Way is a walk across a sacred mountain top at night, gazing up at the canopy of the heavens far above. Composed for the Sequential Prophet Rev II synthesiser, it uses arpeggiators and layered electronics to create waves of pulsing and sparkling sounds across the instrument.
Alex Groves’ new work, performed on a ROLI Seaboard RISE 2 keyboard, takes chopped-up dance floor remnants and reimagines them for the concert hall. Vocal samples, drum kicks, sweat and spilled drinks all collide in music that falls somewhere between a premonition and a misremembered memory.
And Zubin Kanga’s Hypnagogia (after Bach) combines the piano with a Korg Prologue synthesiser and MiMU sensor gloves that can sculpt and morph the keyboard sounds in the air, in a mind-bending exploration of the final movement of Bach’s St Matthew Passion.
‘Cyborg Pianist’ Zubin Kanga is at the forefront of creating, curating and performing groundbreaking interdisciplinary works that explore and redefine how musicians can interact with new technologies.
All three works were commissioned by Zubin Kanga as part of Cyborg Soloists, supported by a UKRI Future Leaders Fellowship and Royal Holloway, University of London.
