Cycling celebrity: Avant-garde pianist and composer Gregory Oh
Almost six years ago, roughly 60 cyclists rode around the oval track of a public school in downtown Toronto. Along the track were checkpoints that gave the riders instructions. At some points some of the cyclists rang bells. Other times they made sounds with their voices.
“It was a unique sound experience. When you have that many musicians that are moving around, it’s like a mobile orchestra playing instruments you’ve never heard before,” says Gregory Oh, a pianist, composer and artistic director. “A lot of people said it sounded like there were aspects of Japanese music. Sometimes they said it sounded like waterfalls or tumbling rocks or strange spectral things. I’d say everyone came away with something different. You got waves of sounds because riders are passing by you. The most magical part is when they are very far away and you just hear them above the regular din of the city.”
Gregory Oh was behind the bike-based concert. He organized the event called Music for 6008 Spokes. (He thinks with 60 cyclists, he fell short of 6,008 spokes.) The musical score the riders were working from is called Eine Brise (A Breeze) by the avant-garde German-Argentine composer Mauricio Kagel. It was followed by a bicycle ballet. The event does fit with Oh’s musical preoccupations: challenging and unconventional sounds and a bit of fun.
Oh’s music is not the type that makes its way to the ears of the casual music listener. It’s boundary-pushing stuff. Even practitioners like Oh aren’t always sure what to call it. Post-classical? Avant-garde? Modern composition? Whatever the name, the music can seem strange. It puts demands on the listener. But that doesn’t mean it should seem like homework. One of Oh’s other playful projects is the Halo Ballet. The performance featured four gamers using the eponymous first-person shooter game and a fifth who acts as the “cameraman.” Oh found a choreographer to orchestrate the moves on screen and a composer to write a score for them. An exploding jeep was part of the performance, which has been performed for contemporary-music going audiences as well as gamers.
As the Halo Ballet came from the side of Oh that likes video games, Music for 6008 Spokes grew from his love of the bike. He has three of them. He used to have five, but unloaded two when he moved into his current apartment. In the spring of 2013, he was in the market for a fourth bike though, for his commutes by train. One of his many gigs is as the artistic director of the Open Ears Festival of Music and Sound based in Kitchener, Ont. He feels a folding bike would be just the thing for getting around Kitchener after he arrives from Toronto.
Oh also has a touring bike. “It’s an Urbanite frame. I bought the frame and I built it up. It was a long labour of love.” He’s gone on fully loaded touring trips to Montreal and Long Island. He describes his ride through hilly Vermont in a heat wave, bike weighted with full panniers, as “one of the worst experiences of my life.” But he still loves going for long rides. Oh cleared his schedule for the summer for 2013 because he wanted to ride out to Prince Edward Island. He’s also thought about getting into randonneur riding.
Oh also has a Bacchetta Agio recumbent. “It’s a different ride,” he says. “I would say it’s much more relaxing. But, you give over a bit of control because it’s a little less manoeuvrable.” Oh usually keeps to Toronto’s recreational paths when he’s on the recumbent.
His everyday, commute-through-the-winter bike is a 1983 Trek road bike with a lugged steel frame. “Of all my bikes, it’s probably the most valuable to me,” he says. “In fact, I would go so far as to say that it’s my most valuable possession. If I had to part with the bike or my piano, I’d have to think about it. And I would probably go with the bike because pianos are pretty generic and replaceable. A good steel-framed bike that fits you, well…” he trails off and laughs.
“The piano needs a bit of work. It’s probably less maintained than the bicycle,” he adds.
Gregory Oh fast facts
Hometown Toronto
Profession pianist, composer, artistic director
Bikes 1983 Trek road bike, Bacchetta Agio, Urbanite touring bike
