Xenia Pestova Bennett first discovered the music of Annea Lockwood as a music student at Victoria University of Wellington in the late 1990s. She remembers listening to Red Mesa and reading about Piano Transplants, which she found to be radical, exciting and inspiring. Sixteen years later, Xenia finally got to meet Annea and talk about the lives, deaths and memories of pianos while working on Lockwood’s Fluxus-inspired compositions, such as  Piano Burning in North Wales in 2013, and subsequently learning the complete concert works and realising other “Piano Transplants” in different locations over time.

The “Indoor” piano works such as presented on this album take a similar approach where the composer’s treatment of the instrument requires both the performer and the listener to “walk” with their ears. The piano becomes a collection of sound sources discovered over time through objects and tactile connections, while the placement, timing and repetition of events varies and is modified by the performer in response to the resonance of the instrument and the space it occupies.

This recording of four pieces marks the culmination of a long collaborative relationship between composer and performer and brings together the complete concert piano works by Lockwood. It includes a new version of Ceci n’est pas un piano (originally written in 2002) made especially for this project.

With liner notes by Annea Lockwood and Xenia Pestova Bennett.