Duo Maroney - Loriot
Denman Maroney (hyperpiano, US) and Frantz Loriot (viola and objects, FR), create, develop and perform improvised music that exploits and entwines their complimentary vocabularies of extendend instrumental techniques.
They share the views that all sound is potentially musical, any ‘‘effect’’ must be musically justified, and all parameters (register, duration, dynamics, density, timbre and envelope as well as melody, harmony and rythm) are equally important. They find similar and synergistic ways to use these ideas to make music together.
Maroney’s ‘‘hyperpiano’’ technique, as he calls it, involves playing the keys while bowing and/or sliding the associated strings with copper bars, steel cylinders, brass bowls, plastic CD and cassette casses, wood dowels and rubber blocks. Each technique, tool and material produces a different color and shape. He has been honing and interleaving these techniques for over forty years.
Loriot’s techniques include bowing with heavy pressure on the strings or box, rubbing or striking with his hands and fingers, applying the wood of the bow to the neck or head and preparing the strings with chopsticks, as well as the moreestablished techniques of col legno, sul ponte, ponticello, harmonics, sub-harmonics, snap pizz, etc. He also bows and otherwise excites a variety of objects like metal plates, cymbals and bowls.
Maroney and Loriot met for the first time in 2007 in New York. Since then, they regulary meet to develop their common language.
Denman Maroney
“Pianists have been tinkering with the guts of their instruments for nearly a century now, but it’s altogether likely that no one has explored the art of prepared piano as diligently or creatively as hyperpianist Denman Maroney.” Time Out New York
The music of "hyperpianist" Denman Maroney is inspired by nature and the music of John Cage, Ornette Coleman, Henry Cowell, Duke Ellington, Charles Ives, Scott Joplin, Olivier Messiaen, Thelonious Monk, Conlon Nancarrow, Karlheinz Stockhausen, and Cecil Taylor among others. Maroney plays what he calls “hyperpiano,” which involves bowing and sliding the strings with copper bars, steel cylinders, Tibetan prayer bowls, rubber blocks and CD cases and gives him a unique sonic vocabulary. He also uses a system of temporal harmony based on the undertone series that allows him to improvise and compose in several tempos at once.
Maroney has recorded for Innova, Clean feed, Nuscope, Cryptogramophone, New
World, Victo, Porter, CIMP, Potlatch, Erstwhile, Music & Arts, Tzadik, Knitting
Factory, Soul Note, Cadence, Mutable, Finnadar, Tellus, Enja, and Einstein among others. He has collaborated with Mark Dresser, Michael Sarin, Alexandra Montano, Mat Maneri, Leroy Jenkins, Min Xiao-Fen, Rich O’Donnell, Ned Rothenberg, Dave Ballou, Kevin Norton, Matthias Ziegler, Earl Howard, Hans Tammen, Gerry Hemingway, Mary Rowelll, Theo Bleckmann, Dave Douglas, Phil Haynes, Robert Dick, and David Simons among others.
Maroney has won grants from CMA, the NEA, the Arts Council of Rockland County NY, the NY State Council on the Arts, Music Omi, ASCAP, Meet the Composer, the Mary Flagler Cary Charitable Trust, the Jerome Robbins Foundation, the New York Foundation for the Arts, the Yale Summer School of Music and Art, and the Michigan Arts Council. He was educated at Cal. Inst. of the Arts (MFA `74), Bennington and Williams (BA `71). He studied with Jimmy Garrison, Steven Mosko and James Tenney among others.
For more information see www.denmanmaroney.com
Frantz Loriot
He contributed to multidisciplinary projects connected to poetry (for label EPM, France), cinema / video and dance with different companies in Paris. Some of his projects today include:
Viola 2 Viola (with violist Cyprien Busolini), Bobun (with cellist Hugues Vincent), baloni (with Joachim Badenhorst & Pascal Niggenkemper), Duo Maroney - Loriot (with hyperpianist Denman Maroney), Natura Morta (with bassist Sean Ali and drumer Carlo Costa) and is member of the Jürg Wickihalder Orchestra (CH).
He created and curated "Ze Couch series" in Brooklyn, NY, from 2009 to 2012. Frantz was initiated to the soundmassage by Thierry Madiot.
He was heard alongside many musicians (among them): Joëlle Léandre, Barre Phillips, the David S. Ware string ensemble, Anthony Braxton & Walter Thompson Orchestra, Andrea Parkins, Michael Formanek, Ben Miller, Franck Smith, Franck Vigroux, Jean-Luc Cappozzo, Alexei Borisov, Jon Irabagon, Tonino Miano, Ben Gerstein, Jonathan Moritz, Duane Pitre's ED09 ensemble, Tim Kuhl, Jeremiah Cymerman, James Ilgenfritz, Mikko Innanen, Theresa Wong, Ernesto Rodrigues, Michael Attias, Régis Huby, Nasuno Mitsuru, Daniel Studer, Christopher Hoffman, Hilmar Jensson, Daniel Carter etc.
After living in Paris and New York City, Frantz recently relocated in Zurich, Switzerland.
