Piano Drowning
Soundlands presents Piano Drowning by Annea Lockwood permanently installed at Plas Bodfa, Wales.
Piano Drowning is one of three scores from Annea Lockwood’s ‘Piano Transplants’ series, in which pianos are placed in specific locations that would somehow alter their physical states. Removing the piano from the concert hall and living room, bringing the instruments into direct contact with the forces of nature, she allows the pianos to be played by the environment in which they are situated. In this occurrence, the pond at Plas Bodfa.
For the installation’s opening in 2021, Soundlands presented a new piano work specially commissioned for Piano Drowning at Plas Bodfa. The work is composed by Ynyr Pritchard and performed on the partially submerged piano by the composer and Xenia Pestova Bennett.
In 2022 Ynyr Pritchard composed an entirely new composition ‘The Christ of Agony’ for drowned piano and dispersed tape. The work explores issues of climate change, war, protest and the inevitable passage of time.
‘Piano Drowning’ 2021 at Plas Bodfa - Photograph by Jonathan Lewis
The Christ of Agony (a passion) 2022
for drowned piano and dispersed tape
Duration : ~56’34”
celebrating one year of ‘Piano Drowning’
by Annea Lockwood
composed and presented by Ynyr Pritchard
24th of September 2022
Building upon his previous work ‘boddi’, (performed on the newly drowned piano one year ago), Ynyr Pritchard performed an entirely new composition, on and around the piano, which has spent a full year now fully immersed in the pond at Plas Bodfa. Using the structure of the Passion of Christ, along with a ruler, speakers, a bicycle tyre inner tube, two brushes, a piece of plastic sheeting and a large piece of white cloth, Pritchard explores issues of climate change, war, protest and the inevitable passage of time.
Piano + Time, a blog
Julie Upmeyer, the Custodian of the Pond (and by extension the piano) has agreed to observe and document the piano for as long as she is alive and living at Plas Bodfa. See the entire blog here.
Boddi, 2011
for drowned piano
Duration : ~56’34”
15th of September 2021
The commissioned score was played on the drowned piano by the composer Ynyr Pritchard and pianist Xenia Pestova Bennett. It was filmed and recorded, experienced and enjoyed by a limited audience.
Biographies
Annea Lockwood
Annea Lockwood is a New Zealand born composer now settled in the USA. During the 1960s she collaborated with sound poets, choreographers and visual artists, and created a number of works such as the Glass Concerts which initiated her lifelong fascination with timbre and new sound sources.
In 1968, and in synchronous homage to Christian Barnard’s pioneering heart transplants, Lockwood began a series of Piano Transplants in which defunct pianos were burned, drowned and planted in an English garden.
She has since created numerous performance works focused on environmental sounds and life-narratives.
Many of her compositions include recordings of natural ‘found sounds’ and can be heard on labels such as Lovely, Harmonia Mundi and Ambitus.
Ynyr Pritchard
Ynyr Pritchard is an award-winning Welsh-Maltese musician and composer. Only 19 years old, he has already played with several national youth orchestras and ensembles, made numerous appearances at the BBC Proms, Urdd and National Eisteddfodau, and music festivals.
Ynyr studied viola first through the Canolfan Gerdd William Mathias and at the Junior Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester. He took private composition classes with Jeffrey Lewis before also continuing his lessons in composition at the JRNCM with Matthew Sergeant, Larry Goves, Mark Dyer and Joshua Brown.
He has recently completed his first year at the Royal Conservatoire of The Hague studying both viola and composition with Ásdís Valdimarsdóttir and Calliope Tsoupaki respectively.
Xenia Pestova Bennett
Xenia Pestova Bennett is an innovative performer and educator. Much lauded in the international press, she has earned a reputation as a leading interpreter of uncompromising repertoire alongside masterpieces from the past. Her commitment to promoting music by living composers inspired her to commission dozens of new works and collaborate with major innovators in contemporary music.
Her numerous and widely acclaimed recordings include piano works by John Cage and Karlheinz Stockhausen with Pascal Meyer and her own compositions. Her full-length album “Atomic Legacies" features Ligeti Quartet and the Magnetic Resonator Piano.
Xenia has been Head of Performance at Bangor University, and now lectures in music at the University of Nottingham.
Xenia's previous collaboration with Soundlands includes a realisation of Annea Lockwood’s “Piano Burning” in the presence of the composer in 2013.
Artist Observers
In collaboration with two local artist networks DAC and CARN, four artist observers were invited to witness the filming of the very first performance on the drowned piano in 2021. Actively responding to the sights, sounds and surrounds, they were sketching, mark-making, writing, reacting.
Sian Hughes
Menai Rowlands
Marirose Pritchard
Stephen Green
Piano Drowning – path to the pond
The upright piano used in this work was sourced from Collinge Antiques and was indeed beyond repair.
Delivered to Plas Bodfa, it was kept on land for about a week for rehearsals. It was transported to the near side of the pond on a trailer and then carried by hand to the far side of the pond. The piano was gently lowered into the pond using with a team of eight volunteers, using pulleys and guide ropes on a custom-made ramp.
According to Annea’s wishes, the keyboard lid will remain open to the elements, inviting interaction from weather and guests.
History
‘Piano Drowning’ 1972 - Photograph by Richard Curtin
‘Piano Drowning’ was first realised in 1972 in Amarillo, Texas, USA
The original score is as follows:
Find a shallow pond with a clay/other hard bed in an isolated place.
Slide upright piano into position vertically, just off-shore.
Anchor the piano against storms, e.g. by rope to strong stakes.
Take photographs and play it monthly, as it slowly sinks.
Note: All pianos used should already be beyond repair.
Many Thanks To
Bedwyr Williams, Sam Carter and Corey Latham of Mon Caravans
Richard Pritchard
Dave and Peg Upmeyer
Lucy Low, John Stenson, Jeremy Hanniss-Ashton, Kirsty Lindenbaum, Ian Thorpe and Peter Stuart of Llangoed
DAC and CARN
Sian Hughes, Stephen Green, Menai Rowlands and Marirose Pritchard as our artist observers
Agi, Alan, Emily, Femke, Ffion, Jonathan, Karine, Oliver, Lisa, Nesta, Niki, Paul, Rachel, Ruth & Zöe – The Witnesses
This installation of Annea Lockwood’s Piano Drowning is presented by Soundlands
in collaboration with ISSUE Project Room,
which honours the artist in 2021 with a global staging of Piano Transplants.
The project was supported by a grant from the Arts Council of Wales.
