Weathered Piano Exchanges
This web-site, Weathered Pianos, has two objectives: the first being to link to web-sites that document piano sites and sanctuaries within which pianos have been left to weather; the second being to provide a space to document and disseminate artistic outcomes of a series of Weathered Piano Exchanges — artistic projects that exchange the sounds of pianos from various locations. The first of this series of exchanges was the Art’s Birthday Weathered Piano Exchange between Jesse Budel (Murray Bridge Piano Sanctuary, Murray Bridge, Australia) and Nadene Thériault-Copeland (Decomposing Piano at New Adventures in Sound Art (NAISA), South River, ON, Canada) between December 2023 and January 2024. The recordings were done by Jesse Budel and Darren Copeland and a binaural mix of the entire first exchange was created by Jesse Budel.
Artist Bios
Jesse Budel (improvisations, recording and mixing) is a composer-performer, sound artist, producer and arts entrepreneur based in South Australia.
Jesse is the founder and curator of the Murray Bridge Piano Sanctuary, and is also the Secretary of the World Forum for Acoustic Ecology.
His works are for diverse media and spaces, ranging from concert works and installations to community and interdisciplinary collaborations. His music has been performed the Australian String Quartet (AUS), Soundstream Ensemble (AUS), Zephyr Quartet (AUS), Elder Conservatorium Wind Orchestra (AUS) and Corvus Ensemble (Alaska, USA), and he has been an artist-in-residence at Adelaide City Library and Sir Robert Helpmann Theatre in Mount Gambier (SA, AUS), as well as at Arts Letters and Numbers (Upstate NY, USA).
Jesse’s PhD research at Elder Conservatorium of Music (supported by an Australian Government Research Training Program scholarship) focused on adapting soundscape ecology to creative process, resulting in a body of works responding South Australian ecosystems and soundscapes, and receiving a Dean’s Commendation for Doctoral Thesis Excellence in 2019. Previously, he graduated with a Bachelor of Music (Composition) with First Class Honours in 2013, studying with Graeme Koehne, David Harris and Charles Bodman Rae, and receiving numerous Director’s Awards for ‘outstanding achievement as a composer and a high level of commitment in the promotion and performance of new music.’
Nadene Thériault-Copeland (improvisations) is a composer and improvisor. Nadene’s interest in improvisation and in alternative tunings prompted her to create the current Decomposing Piano exhibit at NAISA where she also promotes the dissemination of new and experimental sound art through her work as Executive Director with New Adventures in Sound Art. Nadene received her Honours B.A. in Music from York University in 1991 where she studied composition with James Tenney and performance with Christina Petrowska-Quilico.
Nadene has edited four educational booklets published by NAISA: Radio Art Companion (2002), Sign Waves Companion (2002), Sound in Space (2003) and Sound Art Basics (2008). Nadene’s article comparing John Cage and Erik Satie, “Two Composers in the Form of a Pair” was published in Musicworks iss. no. 58 (Spring) 1994, p 41 and was subsequently re-published in Rencontrer, encountering John Cage, Elne, VOIX éditions, 2008; H. K. METZGER et R. RIEHN (éd.), p 76
Darren Copeland (recording and mixing) has been active as a sound artist since 1985 and is the founding Artistic Director of New Adventures in Sound Art. Copeland’s sound art practice focuses on multichannel spatialization for live performance, fixed media composition, soundscape, radio art and sound installation. He studied electroacoustic composition under Barry Truax at Simon Fraser University and Dr. Jonty Harrison at University of Birmingham.
Copeland incorporates both abstract and referential sound materials in his fixed media compositions, and many of these works are published on the empreintes DIGITALes label. His radio art works engage in the associative qualities of environmental sounds in relation to spoken text and have been commissioned for public radio across Europe and North America. His sound installations include gallery and site-specific works which examine the relationship of sound and place.
In addition to composing, he has written articles about sound art, listening and environmental sounds for the book Art of Immersive Sounds (edited by Ellen Waterman and Pauline Minevich), Musicworks, Canadian Theatre Review, eContact! (CEC), Circuit, and Soundscape: Journal of Acoustic Ecology.