A four-day festival of music for the king of instruments is a unique and wonderful treat, especially as it is set in a performance space, The Lab, that enables the blending of live action with visual effects. Featuring concerts, masterclasses and talks running from noon to night, the PianoLab program embraces classical, jazz, contemporary and experimental musical genres, and showcases nationally and internationally renowned performers as well as many of Adelaide’s best and brightest young pianists.
PianoLab. Photo supplied
The Lab is a multifunction space operated by the Light Cultural Foundation, a not-for-profit organisation that supports creative developments using evolving technologies, and the venue is frequently used to stage innovative musical and artistic performances. Two walls of The Lab are completely covered by LED screens that display a range of imagery, with the performers situated in front of them. It’s an intimate space — an electric salon — that challenges artists, composers, writers and performers to reimagine their oeuvres or to develop entirely new forms. For PianoLab, the performers have worked with video makers Allen Macintosh and Fraz the Wizard to choose the visual material that accompanies their programs.
The first...
The virtuosic performance of Paavali Jumppanen will linger in the minds of the attendees at his sold-out concert. The youthful vigour of Mozart’s Sonata in F Major was balanced with the majestic Beethoven ‘Hammerklavier’. And yes, the stark, yet intimate space of TheLab did permit a delicate balance between the magnificence of the performance and the sensitive, rolling, visual digital background.