Op.10, No. 12

Stuttgart – Warsaw, 2013
highway performance / installation / road movie
reed organ, vehicle, Frédéric Chopin’s Revolutionary Étude,
video HD, colour, sound
672 minutes

Op. 10, No. 12 is an extended interpretation of Frédéric Chopin’s Revolutionary Étude, which becomes the soundtrack for a road trip. I played a 12-hour-version of the Étude on a 12-hour-drive from Stuttgart to Warsaw on a reed organ keyboard. During this 1.121 km drive between my Stuttgart Studio and the Chopin memorial in Warsaw the airflow was used to power the free reed instrument, which was affixed in the skylight of the car.
The project echoes the story of the travelling Chopin, who composed his Revolutionary Étude in Stuttgart, after he heard about the defeat of the November Uprising in Warsaw, 1830.

Op.10, No.12 (excerpt)