A prepared piano is a piano that has had its sounds temporarily altered by placing bolts, screws, mutes, rubber erasers, and/or other objects on or between the strings. Its invention is usually traced to John Cage's dance music for Bacchanale (1940), created for a performance in a Seattle venue that lacked sufficient space for a percussion ensemble. Cage has cited Henry Cowell as an inspiration for developing piano extended techniques, involving strings within a piano being manipulated instead of the keyboard. Typical of Cage's practice as summed up in the Sonatas and Interludes (1946–48) is that each key of the piano has its own characteristic timbre, and that the original pitch of the string will not necessarily be recognizable. Further variety is available with use of the una corda pedal.
Michael Abels is an American composer best known for the opera Omar, co-written with Rhiannon Giddens, and his scores for the Jordan Peele films Get Out, Us and Nope. The hip-hop influenced score for Us was short-listed for the Oscars and was even named "Score of the Decade" by TheWrap. Other recent media projects include the films Bad Education, Nightbooks, Fake Famous, and the docu-series Allen v. Farrow. His most recent releases include Beauty which premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival and is now streaming on Netflix, Breaking which premiered at Sundance, and his third collaboration with Jordan Peele, Nope.
Múm is an Icelandic indietronica band whose music is characterized by soft vocals, electronic glitch beats and effects, and a variety of traditional and unconventional instruments.
Hilary Hahn is an American violinist. A three-time Grammy Award winner, she has played as a soloist with orchestras and conductors, and as a recitalist. Several composers have written works for her, including concerti by Edgar Meyer and Jennifer Higdon, partitas by Antón García Abril, two serenades for violin and orchestra by Einojuhani Rautavaara, and a violin and piano sonata by Lera Auerbach.
Patrick Doyle is a Scottish composer and occasional actor best known for his film scores. During his 50-year career in film, television and theatre, he has composed the scores for over 60 feature films. A longtime collaborator of actor-director Kenneth Branagh, Doyle is known for his work on films such as Henry V, Sense and Sensibility, Hamlet, Carlito's Way, Quest for Camelot, and Gosford Park, as well as Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, Rise of the Planet of the Apes, Thor, Brave, Cinderella,Murder on the Orient Express and Death on the Nile.
A discography of FatCat Records and sublabel 130701.
FatCat Records is an English independent record label based in Brighton. The label's output reaches into many styles including experimental rock, electronica, psychedelic folk, contemporary classical, noise and post-punk. Notable artists that have released music on the label include Sigur Rós, Múm, Animal Collective, Frightened Rabbit, Shopping, The Twilight Sad, Vashti Bunyan and We Were Promised Jetpacks.
Valgeir Sigurðsson is an Icelandic record producer, mixer, composer, audio engineer and musician.
Loscil is the electronic/ambient music project of Scott Morgan from Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. Morgan launched the project in Vancouver in 1998 while a member of the multimedia collective Multiplex, which curated audiovisual events at an underground cinema called The Blinding Light. The name Loscil is taken from the "looping oscillator" function (loscil) in Csound.
Adam Bryanbaum Wiltzie is an American composer and sound engineer based in Brussels, Belgium.
Hildur Ingveldardóttir Guðnadóttir is an Icelandic musician and composer. A classically trained cellist, she has played and recorded with the bands Pan Sonic, Throbbing Gristle, Múm, and Stórsveit Nix Noltes, and has toured with Animal Collective and Sunn O))). She has received various accolades, including an Academy Award, two Grammy Awards, and a Primetime Emmy Award.
Dustin O'Halloran is an American composer and pianist. Aside from releasing music as a recording artist, O'Halloran is a film and TV composer, as well as one half of ambient act A Winged Victory for the Sullen.
Alev Lenz is a Turkish–German, Grammy-nominated record producer, singer-songwriter and composer.
Ferndorf is the fourth studio album by avant-garde musician Hauschka, released on October 7, 2008. The album features more electronic and instrumental overdubs than previous efforts, while still retaining the prepared piano sound Hauschka is usually associated with. On release, it received generally positive reviews from critics.
Nils Frahm is a German musician, composer, and record producer based in Berlin. He is known for combining classical and electronic music and for an unconventional approach to the piano in which he mixes a grand piano, upright piano, Roland Juno-60, Rhodes piano, drum machines, and Moog Taurus.
Anirudh Ravichander, also credited mononymously as Anirudh, is an Indian composer and playback singer who works primarily in Tamil cinema, in addition to Hindi and Telugu films. He has won two Filmfare Awards South, ten SIIMA Awards, six Edison Awards and five Vijay awards.
Jean-Michel Bernard is a French pianist, composer, educator, orchestrator, and music producer. He is well known for regularly writing, performing, and scoring for films, such as The Science of Sleep, Hugo, Paris-Manhattan, Ca$h, and Be Kind Rewind.
Gyða Valtýsdóttir is an Icelandic musician and multi-instrumentalist and winner of the 2019 Nordic Council Music Prize. She was an original member of the experimental music group Múm and has released four full-length solo albums, created music for films, installations, theater and dance.
Lion (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack) is the soundtrack album to the 2016 film Lion. The album mostly features musical score composed by Dustin O'Halloran and Volker Bertelmann, known by the stage name Hauschka. This film marked their joint collaboration together in scoring films. The score consisted of piano, accompanied by strings, percussions and a minimal orchestra, to produce the score in a "subtle and restrained manner", to convey the emotions of Saroo, the film's protagonist. The score album, also featured a promotional single, "Never Give Up" by Sia. The album was distributed by Sony Classical Records and released in digital formats on 25 November 2016, and through CDs on 23 December. A vinyl edition of the album also released on 17 March 2017.
All Quiet on the Western Front (Soundtrack from the Netflix Film) is the score album composed by German composer Volker 'Hauschka' Bertelmann to the 2022 film All Quiet on the Western Front, directed by Edward Berger, based on the 1929 novel of the same name by Erich Maria Remarque as well as the third feature film to be adapted from the novel after the 1930 silent film and 1979 television film. The album, featuring 24-tracks, was released by Netflix Music on October 28, 2022, the same day as the film.
