Beyond Twelve

For nearly two hundred years the piano’s design has been exactly the same: 12 keys/7 times, low-to-high = left-to-right.  Period.  But why 12…?  Why left-to-right…?  What if……

Beyond Twelve is a project that uses state-of-the-art physical modeling technology to break free from the constraints of this design—and the piano will never be the same again.

Every two years, concert pianist and MicroFest managing-director Aron Kallay commissions new works from seven to ten of the world’s most imaginative composers, with two ground rules: 1) re-tune the keyboard, from extended just intonation to 88 equal-divisions of the octave and everything in between.  2) re-map the keyboard, left can be right, high can be low; pitches need not be linear.

The pieces will be premiered at MicroFest and toured nationally and internationally, before being recorded and released on MicroFest Records.

Beyond Twelve: Volume I featured inventive and visionary new works by Isaac Schankler, Brian Shepard, Kyle Gann, Aaron K. Johnson, Jason Heath, John Schneider, Vera Ivanova, and Tom Flaherty that will be record and released in 2013.

Preparations are underway for Volume II, to be released in 2017.