UW World Series screen brings piano action into full view

People like to watch — piano keyboards, that is.

At any recital that isn't packed, you'll notice the audience gravitating to the left side of the hall, leaving swaths of seats empty on the right. Indeed, for some people the inability to see what those fingers are up to is a reason to stay home rather than buy a ticket.

As of this week, UW World Series is countering that by installing a 10-by-7 ½-foot screen above the performer that displays the keyboard action clearly. The camera is mounted on the rim of the balcony and a 10,000-lumens projector, equipped with a powerful zoom lens, throws a bright close-up of the keyboard 90 feet from the projection booth to the stage.

The cost of the new system (just under $60,000) includes adaptations to make it compatible with Meany's lobby — and backstage television monitors, along with other stage uses.

It's not just piano enthusiasts on the right-hand side of the theater who'll benefit. Anyone seated on the far left gains an advantage, too. After all, it's not as if you can see through the pianist to see what the left hand is doing.

Pianist Lara Downes inaugurates the new setup Wednesday. While she tried it out earlier this week, I roamed every corner of Meany — extreme right, extreme left, high in the balcony, under the balcony overhang — and had a good view from all angles, apart from the front rows' far right and left.

Downes says this is the first time she's encountered this particular concert-hall arrangement. The screen, she adds, isn't at all noticeable to her as she plays.

As for what she's playing, it's an all-American program featuring both big names — Samuel Barber, Aaron Copland, George Gershwin — and lesser-known composers. One of the latter, Florence Price, was the first African-American female composer to be performed by a major orchestra (the Chicago Symphony in 1933).

"She was part of a group of composers," Downes says, "associated with the Harlem Renaissance, writing concert music that was taken from spiritual and other native sources." Downes will play her "Fantasie Negre."

Roy Harris, whose "American Ballads" is on the program, may not be a household name, either. Downes sees him as belonging to a rural-flavored "wide-open American West" camp of 20th-century classical music.

Barber's "Excursions," Copland's "Four Piano Blues" and Gershwin's "Rhapsody in Blue," on the other hand, look more toward jazz and the urban scene for inspiration, in her view.

If Downes' rehearsal is any indication, the concert should be an American musical-vernacular celebration, delivered with finesse — and with fingers in full sight.

Michael Upchurch: mupchurch@seattletimes.com