Zubin Kanga explores the future of musicians’ relationships to technology

Pianist, composer and technologist Zubin Kanga is performing the world première of Laurence Osborn’s Schillers Piano with Manchester Collective in Fever Dreams at the Royal Northern College of Music as part of his groundbreaking project Cyborg Soloists.
He talks to Carmel Thomason about the show, what it means to be a cyborg pianist and the new frontiers of musical technology.

What does it mean to be a cyborg pianist?

Zubin: “It’s been a long-term project of mine (over the last decade) to explore the use of electronic sound, visuals, keyboards and new technologies to extend and expand what I can do on stage as a pianist. But it’s also about exploring deeper questions about the future of musicians’ relationships to technology and how the technology can become integrated into our practice”.

When and how did you first become interested in this type of music?

Zubin: “I’d been commissioning and co-created new piano works since I was at school, and spent many years commissioning and performing works that pushed the limits of pianistic virtuosity, and explored new approaches to extended techniques inside the piano. When I first decided to do a whole concert exploring works with multimedia and new technologies, it was just an extension of this exploration of expanding what a piano can do. But I soon discovered the endless possibilities, and the huge array of different technologies to explore, from new digital instruments, to devices and technologies from other fields that have been adapted to music”.

How has this concept changed and developed through your Cyborg Soloists project?

Zubin: “Cyborg Soloists is my UK Research and Innovation research project, based at Royal Holloway. Cyborg Soloists has made the industry partners, now numbering 26, a major core of what I do, with partners ranging from instrument makers like MiMU to AI companies like WAVE AI, to biosensor companies like ANT Neuro. The collaborating researchers, like Professor Andrew McPherson of the Augmented Instrument Laboratory, have also been key to the project, allowing me to explore new experimental instruments and devices. The project has also extended beyond me to other players and ensembles like Explore Ensemble, Plus Minus Ensemble and Manchester Collective. And it has allowed me to push the boundaries of musical performance, including in Steady State by Alexander Schubert, which uses brain sensors to control sound and video, turning the brain into a component in an audio-visual feedback loop”.

Why do you think some people are concerned about the idea of AI music and what would you say to them?

Zubin: “AI is certainly a double-edged sword. Like many major technological changes in music history – the invention of sampling, the first sequencing software, going back to the invention of recorded music – all have become great tools for musicians, while also making particular musical jobs and roles obsolete. AI is a particularly disruptive technology, and it will almost certainly take the jobs of certain musicians, particularly in commercial music for advertising and background music, but it will also become a useful creative tool, allowing musicians to use it to support their creative work, and offloading a lot of the copyist/typesetting and programming work to AI. With such a rapidly changing technology, it’s impossible to make predictions, but I’m certain that audiences will always want to hear live music from real musicians, creating music by real composers that reflects their time and place”.

Why did you commission Schiller’s Piano and how does it fit with the Cyborg Soloist project?

Zubin: “This is my third collaboration with Laurence Osborn – when I discussed a new concerto with Manchester Collective, we both agreed on Laurence as an innovative and exciting composer who had written excellent works for both of us in the past. Laurence had used the ‘double-manual’ keyboard setup that’s used in this concerto in his two previous works, and we were both keen to explore how the sounds of piano construction, recorded at the Southbank Centre piano workshop, could be combined with the real piano”.

What can people expect?

Zubin: “Schiller’s Piano is an intricate, virtuosic and deeply moving work – like many of the great piano concerti. It uses the keyboard sounds of piano construction in sophisticated combinations with the real piano and the string orchestra, creating a masterful dialogue of sound and texture. Audiences can expect a piano concerto with echoes of the past while also creating some really unique new sounds and combinations that have never been heard before”.

What has it been like to work with Manchester Collective?

Zubin: “Manchester Collective are one of the UK’s top ensembles, and it’s been great to get to know Rakhi and the whole team. They’re an ensemble of virtuosi, with a dedication to pushing the boundaries of classical music performance, but also an understanding of how to put on a great show – the dedication of the players, the immersive lighting and sound, and the adventurous and eclectic programming are all reasons I love seeing Manchester Collective live in concert, and I’m really looking to performing with them for the first time”.

Once the Cyborg Soloists work completes next year, how do you see the work developing?

Zubin: “The project may be extended, but either way I’ll be continuing my work with new technologies. I now have a network of not just interested composers, but also companies, researchers and collaborators from the other arts across the world, and I’ll continue to explore new ways of using the latest technologies to expand what musicians can do on stage. Of particular interest for the coming years are ways of integrating AI, and also the exploration of audio-visual technologies like projection mapping and holograms into musical works”.

What advice would you give someone who was interested in becoming a cyborg musician or would like to learn more?

Zubin: “There’s a huge amount to learn, with skills in the use of relevant hardware, software and the practicalities of putting on a concert with a lot of tech, as well as the experience to understand how to make these sorts of pieces work on stage as compelling performances. All the performers I know who work with new technologies are largely self-taught in these skills. I’d recommend choosing some classic works for their instrument that use electronics, and gradually expanding the types and complexity of technology as they accumulate skills. And of course, having a mentor, or at least a more experienced musician you can work with for early concerts is very valuable”.

Is there anything you’d like to say about the concert?

Zubin: “Schiller’s Piano is a piano concerto for the 21st-century, reflecting on fascism’s empty attempts to create the past, including the building of a fake version of Schiller’s piano, while also looking to the future, with a sound world combining the rich virtuosity of the canon of piano concerti, with the strange sounds of the sampled piano construction, played on my keyboard. Manchester Collective will be performing a big programme around this, ranging from Tchaikovsky to Caroline Shaw. Expect a show that is exhilarating, exploratory, and emotionally rich, combining classical music traditions with groundbreaking new sound worlds”.

Manchester Collective: Fever Dreams is at The RNCM on 10 October 2024.