THE PIANO-PERCUSSION PROJECT

Danny Holt’s Piano-Percussion Project places the pianist amid an array of percussion instruments, calling for acrobatic feats of multi-instrumentalism. Holt first had the idea of playing piano and percussion simultaneously while he was a fellow at the Bang on a Can Summer Music Institute in 2003. Trained as both a pianist and a percussionist, Holt had never combined both skills until a piece by Bang on a Can co-founder Michael Gordon asked for the pianist to play a bass drum with his foot while also playing keyboard. According to Holt, “It was like a light bulb appeared above my head! I started envisioning this elaborate setup of percussion instruments surrounding me at the piano. One idea led to another, and pretty quickly I had the basic concept worked out and began approaching composer friends of mine about this ‘crazy’ idea.” Since then, more than 30 composers have contributed new works to the project.