The Peninsula Press published this video in conjunction with the Half Moon Bay Review, where Saman Ghani Khan was an intern. Khan teamed with Half Moon Bay Review photographer Charlie Russo to produce this piece.
Half Moon Bay musician Mauro FFortissimo doesn’t play the piano. He liberates it.
Ffortissimo is well known on the coast as the organizer of art shows at Enso Gallery. Fans also know that he has turned the piano inside out to create entirely new sounds. He leaves the keys behind to reach into the heart of the piano. He uses mallets, magnets and other tools in the course of a sonic work of art. While the sounds are different, they remain universal. He uses his newly deconstructed instrument to play the music of Igor Stravinsky, John Coltrane and Sun Rah, among many others.
As he notes in the video, he has dislodged the instrument from the western roots and the result is a beautiful dissonance that is unlike anything you’ve ever heard.
Ffortissimo is in the midst of a four-concert run at the Performance Art Institute in San Francisco. The last of those shows is Sunday. Visit theperformanceartinstitute.org for details.
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