About Me
“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 natural sounds and the music of Cage, Coleman, Cowell, Ellington, Ives, Joplin, Messiaen, Monk, Nancarrow and Stockhausen among others. — Maroney uses a set of extended piano performance techniques he calls hyperpiano, which involves bowing or sliding the strings with copper bars, metal bowls, rubber blocks, and plastic boxes and gives him a unique sonic vocabulary. — He also uses a system of temporal harmony based on the undertone series, which enables him to keep several beats at once. — Maroney has recorded for Cryptogramophone, New World, Victo, Nuscope, Clean Feed, CIMP, Innova, Potlatch, Erstwhile, Music & Arts, Tzadik, Knitting Factory, Soul Note, Cadence, Mutable, Finnadar, Tellus, Enja, and Einstein among other labels with Mark Dresser, Michael Sarin, Alexandra Montano, Mat Maneri, Leroy Jenkins, Min Xiao-Fen, Rich O’Donnell, Ned Rothenberg, Dave Ballou, Kevin Norton, Matthias Ziegler, Earl Howard, Hans Tammen, John Hagen, Gerry Hemingway, Mary Rowell, Theo Bleckman, Dave Douglas, Phil Haynes, Robert Dick and David Simons among others. — Maroney has won grants from CMA, ASCAP, NEA, NYSCA, NYFA, Music Omi, Meet the Composer, the Mary Flagler Cary Charitable Trust, the Jerome Robbins Foundation, the Yale Summer School of Music, and the Michigan State Arts Council. — He was educated at California Institute of the Arts (MFA) and Williams (BA).
