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Denman Maroney



Denman Maroney website
for biography, video, audio, photos and press.

For info and costs please contact Alberto Lofoco



Denman Maroney Quintet

Guillaume Orti - soprano and alto sax
Robin Fincker - tenor sax and Bb clarinet
Denman Maroney - piano and composition
Scott Walton - double bass
Samuel Silvant - drums

In June 2025, the quintet recorded an album called "Umwelt", which you can listen HERE



Hyperpiano - Extended Piano Performance Techniques

Denman Maroney - piano and composition

When a piano is played the way it is supposed to be played, the keys are depressed, indirectly causing the hammers to strike the strings. But a piano can also be played by stopping, sliding, bowing, plucking, strumming and striking the strings directly with a variety of tools including bars, bowls, knives, bells and mashers of metal, boxes and bottles of plastic, mallets of various kinds, and blocks of rubber. Collectively he calls these techniques "hyperpiano". Conventional piano music is made from a palate of 88 pitched tones having a particular timbre and envelope. Hyperpiano music is made from a much larger palette in which these tools are used to alter the pitch, timbre and envelope of those tones.



• video •

All Video and description


• audio •

Denman Maroney on BandCamp


• quotes •

Quotes on Denman Maroney website


• links •

Discography and Recordings
Compositions (scores and parts)
Interviews
Temporal Harmony

• short biographies •

"Pianists have been tinkering with the guts of their instruments for nearly a century now, but it's altogether likely that no one has explored the art of prepared piano as diligently or creatively as hyperpianist Denman Maroney."
Time Out New York
The music of "hyperpianist" Denman Maroney is inspired by nature and the music of John Cage, Ornette Coleman, Henry Cowell, Duke Ellington, Charles Ives, Scott Joplin, Olivier Messiaen, Thelonious Monk, Conlon Nancarrow and Karheinz Stockhausen among others. Maroney plays what he calls hyperpiano, which involves bowing and sliding the strings with bars, cylinders, bowls, blocks, and cases and gives him a unique sonic vocabulary. He also uses a system of temporal harmony, based on the undertone series (1, 1/2, 1/3...) that allows him to improvise and compose in multiple tempos at once.
Jimmy Garrison and James Tenney were among his favorite teachers. He has a Master of Fine Arts degree in composition and piano from Cal. Inst. of the Arts. He has won fellowships from Chamber Music America, National Endowment for the Arts, NY Foundation for the Arts, NY State Council on the Arts, Arts Council of Rockland (NY), Michigan Arts and Culture Council, Jerome Robbins Foundation, Mary Flagler Cary Charitable Trust, Music Omi, and Yale Summer School of Music and Art.
His writings are published in John Zorn's "Arcana VI" and Georg Graewe's "grubenklang: reloaded".

Robin Fincker was born in France in 1980, lived in London from 1999 to 2009, and now divides his time between France and Great Britain.
He studied at the Guildhall School of Music in London and at the Conservatoire Supérieur de Musique de Paris. In London, he co-led the band Outhouse, which recorded for Babellabel with Jeanne Added; the Gambian group with sabar Ruhabi and Hilmar Jensson; worked with Alcyona Mick and Pierre Alexandre Tremblay; and was one of the founders of the Loop Collective.
In France, he has worked with Vincent Courtois, Paul Rogers, Fabien Duscombs, Sylvain Darrifourcq, Sylvaine Hélary, Benoit Delbecq, the Toulouse collective Freddy Morezon, Primitive London with Antoine Berjeaut, the Orchestre National de Jazz and Aquaserge. He has recorded more than 30 albums (including 11 as a leader) and has performed at jazz festivals in France, Ukraine, the United Kingdom, Ireland, Germany, Slovenia, Sweden, Austria, Poland and Denmark.
For more information, click HERE

Guillaume Orti (born 1969) studied jazz and classical saxophone in the 80s with Francis Montesinos, Francis Grand, Yochk'o Seffer, André Jaume, Robert Malbec, Jacques Pierson, and attended a jazz seminar at the Banff Center of Fine Arts under the direction of Steve Coleman in 1990.
In the 90s, in Paris, he founded the group Kartet with pianist Benoît Delbecq, bassist Hubert Dupont and drummer Benjamin Henocq (replaced by Chander Sardjoe in 1996, Stéphane Galland in 2013, and Samuel Ber in 2021), which released seven albums by 2022.
Focused on collective experience, he founded the Hask Collective (1993-2005), Mercoledi & Co (1996-2001) and is co-director of the D'un instant à l'autre company (since 2007). He has worked and recorded in France and abroad with the bands Reverse (with Olivier Sens and Gilles Olivesi), Stéphane Payen's Thôt Twin, Franck Vaillant's quartet Benzine, Andy Emler MegaOctet, Belgian groups Aka Moon, Bo Van Der Werf's band Octurn, Laurent Blondiau's Mâäk, the Dutch group Osmosis (with Oene van Geel, Harmen Fraanje, Mark Haanstra and Chander Sardjoe), Finnish saxophonist Pepa Päivinen. In total, Orti has appeared on more than sixty albums.

Scott Walton (born 1957) is an American bassist and pianist based in Millau, France.
He has worked with Denis Fournier, Guillaume Blanc, Tim Perkis, Gilbert Isbin, Steve Adams, Michael Vlatkovich, Alex Cline, Wadada Leo Smith, Vinny Golia, Myra Melford, Nels Cline, George Lewis, John Carter, and Bobby Bradford, among others.
For more information, click HERE

Samuel Silvant (born 1973) is a French drummer who lives in Nîmes, France.
He has worked with René Bottlang, Bernard Santacruz, Olivier Thémines, Philippe Deschepper, Olivier Lété, Philippe Lemoine and Aymeric Avice, among others.
He teaches at Jazz à Junas, runs the Juju Works label, co-directs the company La Cie Les Locataires with Thierry Daudé, and belongs to The Bridge network.
For more information, click HERE

 

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