Jennifer Wright uses a shot glass to make music directly on the strings of her Skeleton Piano.
John Strieder / OPB
Pianist Jennifer Wright did the Chopin and Beethoven thing for years. And she was good at it. But she was in the throes of what she calls a “professional midlife crisis.” A lot of pianists out there play the crowd-pleasers. She wanted something different.
Then, one day, Wright was on Craigslist and she found it: an old Kimball with a cracked soundboard. Free.
“We picked it up, my husband and I — God love him, he’s moved a lot of pianos for me — and he said, ‘This is the heaviest one that we have ever picked up.’ And immediately when I heard that, something about it just made me think, ‘It doesn’t need all this stuff on the outside,' " Wright said.
"The back of it is still there, but the top and the sides, everything’s all gone, so you can sort of see through it from different angles. It allows me access to the strings and mechanisms that you just couldn’t have any other way."
Wright calls her stripped-down instrument the Skeleton Piano. She makes music by banging and sawing on the guts and body of the instrument. The number of different sounds she can make is impressive.
“I started going around the house," she said, "and finding every possible tool and gadget and bit of junk, and just seeing what would happen. ‘How can I use this for sound production? What would it do?’ The shot glasses are my favorite, actually. They make some pretty wild noises."
Agnieszka Laska and Jennifer Wright watch as Laska's dancers rehearse "Obscure Terrain."
Wright's performances have captured the attention of the Agnieszka Laska Dancers. They’ve choreographed a dance performance that is inspired by her movements as she plays.
Wright composed a piece of music for the Skeleton Piano – “Obscure Terrain” – with seven movements, each showcasing a different type of noise. The first movement, for example, is built around an electronic delay and percussive effects. The second movement is all about dampening strings.
“Really, what this piece is about for me is, you’re struggling with your own habits and your own ways and these straitjackets that you put yourself in, sometimes without even knowing,” she said. “An audience who doesn’t even read the program notes, they can see that effort to break free.”
The Agnieszka Laska Dancers rehearse "Obscure Terrain," composed and performed on Jennifer Wright's Skeleton Piano.
Laska's dancers are known for serious works that confront sex trafficking, war and other heavy issues. This is a nice change of pace. “We had a session where we talked about what (Wright) is doing in the piece,” Laska said, “and she was like, ‘In this moment I’m laying on the floor,’ and I was like, ‘Which way are you laying?’ And I choreographed this section for dancers to lay on the floor so their position matches her position. Because it’s really cool that she’s playing piano laying on the floor.”
Wright teaches piano full time. Her living room is dominated by two pianos and a harpsichord. But the Skeleton Piano forces her to think of her profession in a new way. “The whole Skeleton Piano is constantly changing because it’s not super solid," she said. "So weird new little sounds start creeping in there, things I didn’t intend start happening. And that’s part of its beauty. It’s evolving.”
Wright and the Laska ensemble will premiere “Obscure Terrain” October 3 and 4 at the Bodyvox studio in northwest Portland. The performance will also feature video art by Takafumi Uehara.