Photo courtesy of Constance Cooper

Text by Constance Cooper (keyboards/vocals improviser and performance artist)

Do you only improvise?

In a word, No!

Do you play composed music?

Yes, lots!

Music, the sound of an individual composer, induces your fingers to “play” that composer’s “voice”. The more individual that composer is, the more your fingers somehow develop new ways of expressing that voice. To be an artist of the piano, you need huge exposure to widely differing and strong artistic personalities. I think it’s the same as an actress needing to know as many people, as many types, as life gives her time for.

So here I am practicing Chopin mazurkas, after this week brought me improvisation sessions with my refreshingly original a cappella vocal trio Arc Welding and with a new violist colleague–who takes the same approach as I: delight in playing old and new composed works, delight in free improvisation–please stay tuned.

Arc Welding on Youtube: watch and hear the trio cope with taxis, pedestrians, sirens, while improvising music to reverberate in the Alice Aycock outdoor sculptures.