Denman Maroney

“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 the sounds of crickets and carpenters' tools among other things and by 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, special and beautiful vocabulary. He also uses a system of temporal harmony based on the undertone series, which enables him to play as well as write in several beats at once.

Maroney has made twenty commercial recordings including: DISTICH (Nuscope) with Mat Maneri, LEROY JENKINS' DRIFTWOOD: THE ART OF IMPROVISATION (Mutable Music) with Leroy Jenkins,* Min Xiao-Fen and Rich O’Donnell; TIME CHANGES (Cryptogramophone) with Alexandra Montano, Mark Dresser and Michael Sarin; HYPERPIANO (Mon$ey Music); FLUXATIONS (New World) with Ned Rothenberg, Dave Ballou, Mark Dresser and Kevin Norton; DUOLOGUES(Victo) with Mark Dresser; TOOLS OF THE TRADE (CIMP) with Ned Rothenberg; BILLABONG (Potlatch) with Hans Tammen; FIRE SONG (Erstwhile) with Earl Howard; AQUIFER (Cryptogramophone) with Mark Dresser* and Matthias Ziegler; MARINADE (Tzadik) with Mark Dresser,* Mary Rowell and Matthias Ziegler; THE CABINET OF DR. CALIGARI (Knitting Factory) with Mark Dresser* and Dave Douglas; FORCE GREEN (Soul Note) with Mark Dresser,*Theo Bleckmann, Dave Douglas and Phil Haynes; TAMBASTICS (Music & Arts) with Robert Dick, Mark Dresser and Gerry Hemingway; SEGMENTS (Cadence) with John Hagen,* Mark Dresser and Gerry Hemingway; ABSOLUTION (Enja) with the Absolute Ensemble,* a 2001 Grammy nominee; THE BIRTH OF GEORGE (Tellus/Circe) with Lisa Karrer* & David Simons*; VISION VOLUME ONE (AUM Fidelity) with Mark Dresser,* Earl Howard and Kevin Norton; A CONFEDERACY OF DANCES VOL. 2 (Einstein) with Earl Howard; and STOCKHAUSEN PERFORMED BY THE NEGATIVE BAND (Finnadar) with Earl Howard, Carl Stone, Paul Taylor, David Simons, Jon Weisberger and Mike Fink. *leader. Photo by Sheila Schonbrun.

Maroney has received grants from: Chamber Music America's New Works Creation and Presentation Program; Music Omi; the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) to compose for Medicine Show's productions of Jack Agueros' The Sea of Chairs and e.e. cummings' HIM; Yale Summer School of Music & Art (YSSMA) for a composer-in-residence fellowship; ASCAP, New York State Council on the Arts (NYSCA) for a Roulette commission, New York Foundation for the Arts (NYFA) for a composition fellowship, Mary Flagler Cary Charitable Trust for a Tambastics commission, Jerome Robbins Foundation for a Nimbus Dance Theater commission, and Meet the Composer on several occasions.

Maroney also has worked with musicians Tim Berne, Jane Ira Bloom, Jon Deak, Shelley Hirsch, John King, Garrett List, Roger Miller, Michael Moore, Bob Ostertag, William Parker, Bobby Previte, Herb Robertson, Mary Rowell, Ed Schuller, Elliot Sharp and Peter Zummo among others, and dance and theater artists Davidson Lloyd, Sin Cha Hong, Tom Keegan, Tom Lillard, Erin Martin, Wendy Osserman and Mel Wong among others.

Maroney was educated at Cal. Inst. of the Arts (MFA ’74), Bennington College (audits '69 - '71) and Williams College (BA ’71). His teachers included John Bergamo, Alan Chaplin, Bill Dixon, Jimmy Garrison, Leonid Hambro, Ingram Marshall, Steven Mosko, Morton Subotnick, James Tenney and Ki Wasitadipuro. Show less