Camera and sound crews set up as they prepare for the nights event. A live stream was displayed in Franklin Hall for the entirety of the piano’s burning.
Ross Martinie Eiler plays a song on the defunct piano before it is set ablaze. Ross has been playing piano for twenty years and is a piano technician at Indiana University.
The piano awaits its fate on the evening Wednesday, February 7th, 2018. It is somewhat functional, but there are parts that are beyond repair. Certain keys on the piano cannot be played and internal parts do not function.
Annea Lockwood, the composer, uses lighter fluid to help start the fire. This is the second time Lockwood has set fire to a piano for a musical performance.
Ross Martinie Eiler laughs with Annea Lockwood as he plays a last few notes on the now burning piano. Eiler was invited to the event to play the piano before it was set on fire.
The piano is completely engulfed in flames. Three hours was allotted for the performance time, with a reception in Franklin Hall planned afterwards.
Joan Hawkins, an organizer of the Wounded Galaxies symposium, watches as the piano starts to burn. The Wounded Galaxies is a commemoration of the 50th anniversary of 1968, which was a time of international political revolution.
The piano’s internal strings become visible as the outside structure burns away. As the piano is consumed by fire, the strings pop and crackle, making the music Annea Lockwood planned for the performance.
Annea Lockwood watches from the crowd with satisfaction as the piano burns. As a composer, Lockwood says the noise that the piano makes as it burns is the music of the performance.
A crowd gathers in Dunn Meadow as the piano burns into the night. Piano Burning was a public performance held as part of the Wounded Galaxies festival and symposium.
After a little over two hours of steadily burning on a sand pile, the piano finally collapses onto the ground. According to Lockwood, who has burned pianos before, this time frame is standard.
How do you properly celebrate the 50 year anniversary of the year 1968? Well, you set a piano on fire, of course — and on Wednesday, February 7th, 2018, composer Annea Lockwood did just that.
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