Jenny Q Chai’s Multimedia Piano Break

The title of yesterday evening’s Piano Break recital presented by the Ross McKee Foundation was Humanity First: We Are All in This Together. Pianist Jenny Q Chai supplemented her performances with a diversity of visual media techniques. On the theoretical side, she used visualizations of global warming data compiled by the National Aeronautics and Space administration to “accompany” two of György Ligeti’s Musica Ricercata compositions (the first and the seventh). The visualization for the first movement, which consists almost entirely of different rhythms applied to a single pitch class, presented an animated map showing the progression of temperature change. The seventh movement used more natural images, but the brightness of the video was too dim to resolve just what those images were or why they had been selected.

More abstract was the Bay Area premiere of Milica Paranosic’s “Bubble (in trouble),” played in a setting of a bubble machine and lights. That machine seemed to create bubbles of different sizes, each of which set it own trajectory after having been discharged. This made for a fascinating approach to texture, evoking the sort of playfulness that might be encountered in some of the music of Erik Satie. Nevertheless, the bubbles themselves were so engaging that little attention remained for Pavlovic’s score.

The entire program was framed by two compositions by Jarosław Kapuściński, each with its own approach to visuals. The program concluded with “Side Effects,” a series of short movements each supplemented by a panoramic vista captured by Kacper Kowalski. Each of those vistas had its own approach to how much movement took place, and one was almost entirely static. I am not quite sure that there was any connection between the music and the visuals, but the latter struck me as a compelling reminder of how small we are in the grand scheme of things.

The opening selection, “Oli’s Dream,” supplemented Chai’s keyboard work with electronics and visuals. The latter amounted to letter-by-letter typewriter activity disclosing a poem by Camille Norton. This, again, was primarily a matter of playfulness; but the unfolding of the text struck me as a little too self-indulgent for my personal tastes. Indeed, I am not even sure how that particular piece pertained to the title of the program!

Fortunately, the rest of the program was more proactive in reminding listeners of just what that title declared.