Tristan Perich + Vicky Chow present Surface Image

Tristan Perich’s new collaboration with renowned pianist Vicky Chow—”Surface Image”—places the piano within a dense frenzy of 1-bit sound. Forty loudspeakers, each wired to hand-built electronics, cover the stage and accompany Chow’s playing, accumulating into a dense polyphonic cascade of piano notes and 1-bit tones. Crossing Perich’s “1-Bit Symphony” from 2004 (the first album ever released as a microchip) with his background as a classical composer, “Surface Image” is a massive polyphonic synthesis of electronic and acoustic sound.

Canadian pianist Vicky Chow is one of the new shining lights of “academic” music. Trained at Juilliard and the Manhattan School of Music, she is the pianist for the Bang on a Can All-Stars and a founding member of Duo X88 and Grandband. She has also worked with a wide range of composers and musicians including Terry Riley, Philip Glass, Steve Reich and Lee Ranaldo. Tristan Perich’s work is inspired by the aesthetic simplicity of math, physics and code, generating compositions that have been described as “an austere meeting of electronic and organic.”

Their performance for MIRA 2019 will take place in L’Auditori on 5 November. Tickets for this show are not included in the 2 or 3 day festival pass and will be sold separately.