Preparations is an event where 23 artists create a preparation each for the grand piano. Three pianists/groups are then tasked with constructing individual live performances with the adaptable unit of preparations.

For this second iteration of Preparations, musicians Finn Carter, Dear Laika and Ted Mair & Ed Bernez performed on the grand piano with preparations made by Ryoko Akama, Zoë Annesley, Jasper Appleby Sherring, Grace Black, Joseph Bradley Hill, Yasmine Brennan, Kara Chin, Gabriele Ciulli, Jacob Clayton, Leo DMB, enorê, Georgia Gendall, Harley Kuyck-Cohen, Kiran Leonard, Ruoru Mou, Siân Newlove-Drew, Karanjit Panesar, Lou Lou Sainsbury & Gabi Dao, Harry Smithson, Aga Ujma, Jake Vine, Tiffany Wellington & Isobel Whalley Payne.

Finn Carter - untitled:

For the preparation of the piano, Carter decided to leave the preparations untouched during his performance of the piece, with the sculptures positioned as follows:

Yasmine Brennan’s My Albion?? was draped over the cast iron frame in the centre, next to Isobel Whalley Payne’s Untitled clover handkerchief which was weaved between the strings. Joseph Bradley Hill’s Jerry (an old oil can with ball bearings inside and a cloth coated wooden wedge protruding from the underside) sat on the iron frame closer to the keys, accompanied by Harley Kuyck-Cohen’s Demerara, Coffee, Tobacco (a carved wooden cat with a rotating head and beeswax eyes). Moving further up the piano, the arms of Jake Vine’s Mermaid’s Purse (a leather pouch with ceramic buttons inside) were fed in-between the strings, followed only by Gabriele Ciulli’s M & Ruoru Mou’s Scratch - Ciulli’s engraved brake pad dulled the strings with its weight, with Mou’s elongated ceramic hand causing a light resonance. Grace Black’s Conical Side Effect (a metal cone with a connected battery compartment that causes an LED to flash if the compartment is jolted) protruding behind them accompanied by Jacob Clayton’s Fishing magnet to put inside a piano, which stuck firmly to the frame, leaving the plastic keyring attached to the magnet to dangle on the strings and be moved by the vibrations.

Sian Newlove-Drew’s Physics Angel was deemed too perishable to sit inside the piano itself, so for all three performances the glow-in-the-dark candle angel resided on the outer ledge of the piano, looking out at the audience.

Dear Laika - Small vessel in sea green:

For the performance, Thorn began by using Aga Ujma’s a midwinter night's dream (a silver aluminium wiry net of bells) as a shaken percussion instrument and Leo DMB’s waste i saw lorelei to as a mallet to hit the lower strings of the piano. The lower half of the piano was heavily prepared with Georgia Gendall’s Tapestry of Breath (a vacuum packed Ryvita with toothpaste, tic tacs and broken spaghetti), Kara Chin’s Shopping List (a large photo-covered, raisin box-filled, tentacled object), Harry Smithson’s Pothole to Aven (wrapped in Isobel Whalley Payne’s handkerchief) & Jasper Appleby-Sherring’s Praise (cavolo nero) (a bronze cast of kale atop a wooden and metal plate with locator bolts) all sat along one set of strings.

Near the end of the performance Thorn used Karanjit Panesar’s Small vessel in sea green as a slide against certain strings, bifurcating them so each one would play two separate pitches on either side of the pot, reaching a sound halfway between that of a slide guitar and ondes martenot/theremin.

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Ted Mair & Ed Bernez - Pursuit across a landscape old/new:

Mair & Bernez were the most physically active with the preparations of the three performances, as Bernez was able to roam around the piano using the objects percussively whilst Mair played the keys. Bernez began his interactions with the sculptures by using Jacob Clayton’s Fishing magnet to put inside a piano, plucking the lowest strings with the plastic keyring element of the work. He then moved onto shuffling Yasmine Brennan’s My Albion?? and Karanjit Panesar’s Small vessel in sea green on the same set of strings, which were densely occupied by Aga Ujma, Georgia Gendall, Joseph Bradley Hill, Gabriele Ciulli & Leo DMB’s works. As the piece progresses he moves round to the belly of the piano, rearranging many of the objects closer to the centre strings, including Grace Black’s Conical Side Effect.

In the later stages of the performance, Bernez relied heavily on Leo DMB’s waste i saw lorelei to to strum the strings with the clay tipped metal comb prongs, as well as using Karanjit Panesar’s ceramic pot to create a slide effect.