This video captures a performance by Conrad Tao of his work, iridescence, for piano and iPad.
The composition, from 18-year-old American pianist/composer Tao’s debut album Voyages, features the Reactable Mobile app on his Apple iPad. In the piece, Reactable is used for both synth lines and real-time processing of his piano playing, via the iPad microphone.
The work manages to bridge the electroacoustic tradition of classical electronic music and the genre-making ambient work of Brian Eno and Harold Budd. It also is a great demonstration of the possibilities of inexpensive music apps, in creative hands.
Most of all, though, Tao’s work is interesting as a performance, which is too rare in both electroacoustic and ambient music.
Here’s some background on the composition:
Conrad describes the piece as being inspired by the phenomenon of “fractured light, that appears differently depending on what angle you look at it from”.
For more information, see Tao’s site.
via emiclassics, palmsounds
Great music, great musical mind at work. The fact that he’s a kid is merely an afterthought, not a gimmick.
Excellent piece and impressive musicianship!
Hard to believe the cat’s 18!
Just wanted to say thanks for posting the article and the link. I’ve appreciated the iOS app reviews, but wanted to express my appreciation for sharing the work of an artist I may not have run across otherwise. You folks are doing a great job.
Does someone know what the set up is: what is the little box next to the ipad, he seems to be using the audio output of the ipad, is the piano processed throught the ipad, how many mikes are being used? thx
Hey –
The little box on the music stand next to my iPad in this video is a very basic interface. There were only two inputs into the interface – the iPad’s output and one microphone for the piano. Very simple setup.
The oscillator and live processing happen entirely within the Reactable app; they’re mixed within the app as well.
Thanks for listening, and also – thanks for picking the video up! Regular reader here, honored to be featured on the blog.
– Conrad