Pianist Ning Yu and sound artist Heather Stebbins performed their collaborative project, Spirals, live at the KM28 venue in Berlin on May 27, 2026.

Key Jack is a virtuoso concert and a magic trick for the eyes and ears. There sits the pianist Ning Yu in front of a keyboard. She plays – but the keys suddenly have ideas of their own! They clatter and click and seem to say: "Thank you, now we'll make the music ourselves."

Otherwise, everything seems quite normal, except that the pianist has been multiplied via video. She appears on screens to the left and right, and a fascinating interplay between reality and fiction begins. She and her two video selves play a highly virtuosic, six-hand piano piece together, and only a wandering hat helps the audience keep their bearings in this simple yet difficult-to-decipher illusion show.

Key Jack skillfully combines movement, image, and sound in new ways, unsettling even the most attentive viewers and playfully subverting the boundaries between reality and fiction. Composer Michael Beil breaks with traditional concert conventions and, in this nearly 15-minute performance, thoroughly dismantles the usual notion of the musician's relationship to their instrument. The result is a captivating performance that almost makes you forget there's no piano present!

Crash! A grand piano falls – in the film, of course! – from a height of eight meters. In impressive slow motion, you see wood splinters fly and strings snap. And while this video plays above the stage, the American pianist Ning Yu sits calmly at a freshly tuned grand piano – ready to play both instruments simultaneously.

What looks dramatic is actually a playful, imaginative moment conceived by composer Simon Steen-Andersen. The piece is an invitation to rediscover sound – with humor, energy, and a great deal of curiosity. While the broken instrument in the video crackles, scrapes, and clatters, the intact piano on stage produces well-tempered tones. Together, they form a super-instrument, to which the NDR Radiophilharmonie, under the direction of the captivating guest conductor Vimbayi Kaziboni, listens intently – and responds with its own sonic ideas, noises, and melodies.

This concert is an adventure for young and old alike: colorful, surprising, and full of moments that will make you marvel, smile, and laugh. Ideal for curious children and families, and for anyone who wants to experience music in a completely different way.

The sound of a dog’s bark is instantly recognizable. In English, it’s “woof woof.” In Spanish, it’s “guau-guau.” In Japanese, it’s “wan-wan.” But what is it in music, specifically through the piano? For that we turn to Alec Hall’s A Dog Is a Machine for Loving.

This piece is what happens when a composer spends a decade listening—really listening—to the dogs in his life. Over the course of six movements, we are introduced to a cast of unforgettable canine characters. There’s Mabel, whose contented moans inspire tender pet names from the pianist; Merckx, who somehow has Schubert hiding in his bark; Buddy and Piper, whose sniffing and yapping get transcribed note-for-note into the piano; and Mathilda, whose play-fighting with a frisbee escalates just a little too far. Along the way, there are the freely roaming dogs of Sagres, Portugal—whose late-night chorus sparked the whole project—and the buzzing soundscape of two New York City dog parks.

The piece was written for a speaking pianist, but in this performance the roles are divided: Ning Yu takes the piano, while Vinson Cunningham, staff writer for The New Yorker, handles all the speaking—narrating, lecturing on canine behavior, scolding, cooing, and carrying on full conversations with the dogs on the recordings. The piano, meanwhile, acts as a kind of translator, converting the actual acoustic pawprint of each dog’s voice into playable music. The result is funny, tender, surprising, and genuinely unlike anything else in the concert hall.

Where better to showcase this piece than the Museum of the Dog—one of the only venues in the world devoted entirely to celebrating our longest companions. Guests are warmly invited to linger after the performance for a reception with composer Alec Hall and the performers. It will offer a chance for humans and dogs alike to continue the conversation, compare notes, and perhaps provide a bark or two of appreciation.

Peter Evans (trumpet) and Sam Pluta (electronics) have been collaborating since 2008 in a wide variety of contexts. Their work together has spanned small Jazz groups, large wind ensembles, through-composed works by themselves and others, and in educational contexts in the fields of improvisation an electro-acoustic music. Their work together has been featured in the Peter Evans Quintet and Octet, Rocket Science (with Craig Taborn and Evan Parker), Parker's USA Electro-Acoustic Septet, International Contemporary Ensemble and the Wet Ink Ensemble. They have performed at major festivals and venues across Europe, Canada and USA, and have presented their work and ideas at several major colleges and universities.

In the duo format Pluta and Evans use all they have developed from their experience together to forge a new and dynamically interactive music, persistently honing and refining their duo music into a fully formed type of electro-acoustic chamber music. Improvisation and a commitment to the explosive energy of sound itself informs the duo's approach to real time composition.

Their music bridges Evans' efforts to explore new sonic worlds for a traditional acoustic instrument with Pluta's customized and highly flexible software. Their instruments are at some points fused into a unified sonic entity indistinguishable as two voices, while at others engaged in violent counterpoint. 

Heather Stebbins is a DC-based composer and multi-instrumentalist whose work explores the porous boundary between memory and emotion. She foregrounds cello, synthesizer, and an array of other electronics, creating music that is imbued with patience, unfolding slowly over the course of multi-movement suites. Her new album, On Separation, was released by Outside Time in May.

Praised by The New York Times for her 'taut and impassioned performance,' pianist Ning Yu emerges as one of the most compelling voices in contemporary music. Ning brings virtuosity and adventurous spirit to a wide range of music, both in solo performances and in collaborations with some of today’s most distinguished creative artists. Ning has closely collaborated with composers Michael Beil, Brigitta Muntendorf, Annea Lockwood, Wang Lu, David Bird, Aaron Einbond, Alec Hall, and Sufjan Stevens amongst others. She has performed with ensembles AMOC, Bang on A Can All- Stars, ICE, Talea Ensemble, Signal Ensemble, Wet Ink Ensemble, counter)induction, and was a long time member of the piano/percussion quartet Yarn/Wire.

Erin Demastes is an experimental composer, performer, and sound artist. She uses everyday objects and hacked electronics for her installations and performances and subverts their use and perception with play and experimentation. By placing items in theatrical settings, Erin brings out the character of things we normally may not think twice about. In addition to her interest in physical materials, Erin works with instruction and interaction design in her scores, performances, and installations by balancing structured composition with improvisation and exploration.

Erin has presented her work at many venues including Coaxial Arts Foundation, Human Resources LA, Betalevel, Soundpedro at Angeles Gate Cultural Center, Center for New Music SF, Navel LA, Good Children Gallery New Orleans, Mills College, UC Santa Cruz, Tulane University, Rice University, University of Texas at Austin, Towson University, and University of South Carolina and has performed at the High Zero Festival, MOCA, Automata, The Feminist Center for Creative Work, Santa Monica Public Library, Walt Disney Concert Hall, and more.