Piano Room

Queensland-based composer Corrina Bonshek aims to create uplifting musical experiences that connect people to nature. Piano Room is a new piece (it premiered at Redlands Performing Arts Centre earlier this year) and is a brilliant way to start the weekend in an intimate early morning performance for Brisbane Music Festival. Corrina created the concept and sound design, and mixes the sonic soundscape live on stage. The performance features the acclaimed Roger Cui (Principal Pianist for Queensland Ballet) on the eponymous keys, poetry written and read by Merlynn Tong, and a relaxing room design by Tiffany Beckwith-Skinner. The tech is wrangled by sound engineer, James Clark. As well as Corrina’s original music, the piece also features Liszt’s ‘Transcendental Etude No. 12’. The performance starts with Corrina’s demonstration of the surround-sound capabilities of the sound system and she invites us all to move around to enjoy the best possible position in the small FourthWall Arts space. At the appropriate juncture, I grab the seat next to Corrina so I can see her panelling the ProTools, while other audience members take the chance to avail themselves of the cushion and blanket underneath the gorgeous Kawai grand piano.

Roger’s piano was surrounded by green plants and fairy lights, and the black box theatre setting was perfect. I also took up Corrina’s invitation to close my eyes. As the music started, the repeated phrases echo and birdsong transported me to the Australian landscape where sounds were echoing off rocks and caverns. There were waterfalls and birds taking flight from cool pools. The relaxing soundscape melded into rhythmic patterns as we seemed to get closer to the city. There was a thunderstorm – or was it an airplane taking off? People were meeting, as Merlynn’s voice read her poetry – themes steeped in making connections. There may have been a meeting of lovers at a piano bar. Or was it a collision of restless souls at a busy airport lounge? The poetry was about wanting, seeking, life, love – or the connection to nature. I loved relaxing to Corrina’s soundscape, and I did take a sneaky look at her laptop. I felt the audience really relax and enjoy the freedom to be part of this performance. It was fitting that my final sight was the laptop screen, the surround sound diagram, emitting a huge sonic wave, from the back of the room to the front where the piano and performer were seated… the sound of our grateful applause.

Discover the BMF 2024 programme: brismusicfestival.com

Beth Keehn

Photo credits: Piano Room: CB & Collaborators