shaker road: quit existing 
(the quiet in the land) 

blindfold piano performances 

recorded live each sunset at sabbathday lake shaker village, maine, usa, from june 1 (full moon) until june 30 (full moon), 1996, as part of the 'quiet in the land' project and performed on a kawai kg2 grand piano.
credits
released June 30, 1996 

mastered by joe cara at crystal mastering, melbourne, australia. 
all compositions domenico de clario (improvised) 

special thanks to 
adam fuss, penny mccall, penny mccall foundation, france morin, antonio guerrero, and kazumi tanaka; 
sister frances, brother arnold, sister ruth, brother wayne, sister marie, sister june and brother alistair at sabbathday lake shaker village.

Shaker Road June 1996

released december 7, 2008 

domenico de clario: digital piano 
miles du heaume: tape loop, effects, synthesizers

Before First Light

This sound recording is a component of a painting installation I presented at the John Buckley Gallery in Melbourne from April 15 until May 9, 2009. 

The installation comprised fourteen monochromes, each loosely based on an original painting by the French artist Maurice Utrillo (1883-1955). Well known for his idiosyncratic, even poetic, light-filled representations of Montmartre, the artist had, until late middle age, lived a life marginalised by alcohol-addiction and poverty. 

The core of this project proposes that Utrillo’s luminously coloured 
manifestations of Montmartre were in fact transmutations of the artist’s inner shadow. What did this shadow look like? 
More importantly how did it manifest as sound, because, I suggest, the artist must have heard this sound before transmuting shadowy darkness into light. 

Each of the fourteen paintings attempts to locate and then preserve the shadow-image that preceded the making of each original Utrillo. 

As a corollary, this sound recording attempts to describe the inner aural world that Utrillo inhabited as he transmuted shadow into light. 

The keys were touched in response to the questions that arose through the unfolding of this project. Though certain...  more
credits
released April 15, 2009 

digital piano: domenico de clario 
treatments and sound production: miles du heaume 
recorded and mastered at magneto belle studios melbourne, australia 
photography: miles du heaume

U - Thrill - O

Triestement

More - Is

7 Songs

Domenico de Clario is an interdisciplinary artist, writer and musician. 
He was born in Trieste, Italy, in 1947 and migrated to Australia in 1956. 
He was awarded an MA (1998) and a PhD (2001) in Performance Studies from Melbourne’s Victoria University. 
He taught art at PIT/RMIT (1973-1996) and was Head of Contemporary Arts at Perth’s ECU (2001-6) and at Monash University’s School of Art (2006-9). 
From 2009 until 2012 he was Director of Adelaide’s Australian Experimental Art Foundation. 
Since 1966 de Clario has presented more than 300 solo exhibitions, installations and sound performances and has received numerous grants and residencies, including the Australia Council Fellowship. 
*
de Clario presented his first public sound performance at the Clifton Hill Organ Factory in Melbourne in 1977. 
This was his first experience touching the piano keys and his intention for both this and many subsequent improvisatory performances was to focus on not-knowing as a gift that would allow him to explore the chromatic range of the keyboard, consequently publicly privileging with his audiences the wonder of discovery above the display of musical knowledge. 
In 1992 de Clario began to improvise at the keyboard blindfolded, further complicating any reliance on an a priori understanding of the keyboard’s possibilities, in this way advantaging whatever musical  ‘accidents’ occurred above the instrument’s predictability. 
In 1995 he began to use voice to explore popular songs of the early 20th century, dramatically slowing the beat and using the keyboard in the way medieval instruments functioned as drones to more effectively support the voice’s storytelling.  
de Clario is currently serving as Deputy Chair of the Arts Mildura Board and is the Director of the museum of innocence mildura.