Miroslav BEINHAUER
“Pieces For Broken Piano”

Grand Piano Gebrüder Stingl from 1916. The year is 2021. The piano is in the garden; the sun shines on it and rain falls on it. The piano cannot be tuned. Some keys work only partially, some not at all. It is Broken Piano. The first pieces for Broken Piano were recorded on this piano in 2021 and became part of the Fluxus editions Stolen Symphony (2023) and Keep Together (2024). The pieces for this edition were written and provided by Terry Riley and Milan Knízák. “Broken Piano,” which was acquired by the Opening Performance Orchestra to make live and studio recordings, was the focus of both volumes of this edition between 2021 and 2023. Compositions for Broken Piano intended for Fluxus editions were recorded by Czech pianist Miroslav Beinhauer. During this time, other new works for Broken Piano were written by a variety of Fluxus and non-Fluxus composers. In the spring of 2022, the Opening Performance Orchestra and Broken Piano participated in an event hosted by Mieko Shiomi. This was a new version of her early work “Spatial Poem”: it was a moving event, documentation of which was presented at the Aichi Triennale 2022 in Tokyo. During this performative event, consisting of moving any object, Broken Piano was moved from the village Vyzlovka to Unhost, where the SONO music studio is located. It is in the SONO studio that the new compositions for Broken Piano were recorded, written by Terry Riley, Philip Glass, Milan Knízák, Gordon Monahan, Elliot Sharp, Milan Gustar, and Yoon-Ji Lee, which form the content of this album. All the new compositions were recorded by pianist Miroslav Beinhauer.