New Music By Karlheinz Essl

juncTions was inspired by the Toronto-based keyboard collective junctQín. In 2009, junctQín asked me to write a piece for three pianists performing on one piano. Their request triggered several interesting questions for me: What can be achieved on a piano if one person plays the instrument in a traditional way (pressing the keys and pedals) while a second one is playing the inside (with an e-bow and a tone bar, tools more commonly used by guitar players) and a third musician is operating a computer program that creates an immersive maelstrom of sounds by processing the sonorities of the two piano players? The inside and outside sound worlds of the piano confront and connect with each other. For example, connections are intentionally achieved when one player creates a glissando by sliding a piece of metal along the very strings which are excited, hit by the hammers the second player has activated. At first glance the score may look pretty sparse. However, those delicate sound processes that are created by th