Introducing Instant Piano Paris: A Short-Film Series That Breaks the Boundaries Between Classical Music, Performance Art and Cinema

For a long time I have wanted to work beyond the single role of concert pianist. Not to leave it — classical piano is the origin and the truth of everything I do — but to use it as one voice in a larger conversation that also involves short film, performance art, and the specific texture of Parisian public space. Instant Piano Paris is the name of that project. This post is its formal introduction, and the mission statement is published here in French, German, and English because all three languages matter to the series.

Instant Piano Paris is a series of short films released on YouTube. Each chapter pairs a piece of classical piano repertoire with a filmed performance in a specific Parisian location. The films are short — usually three to seven minutes — and each one is built around a single musical idea and a single visual gesture. They are not recordings of concerts. They are performances whose final form is the film itself.

The repertoire is drawn from the composers I return to most: Bach, Debussy, Brahms, Chopin, Beethoven, Strauss, Prokofiev, Stravinsky. The locations are chosen for their architecture, their light, and their resistance to being turned into a set. A bridge. A canal. An empty arcade. A courtyard with wet stone.

I wrote the mission statement in all three of the languages I work in, because the project belongs to three cultures and I did not want the translation to feel like an afterthought. The exact words:

« Au-delà de mon rôle de pianiste, je cherche à créer une œuvre osmotique entre musique classique, performance-art et film court-métrage. Je souhaite briser les codes et les frontières entre les professions artistiques pour libérer les expressions transdisciplinaires des arts, en préservant la musique classique comme vérité et origine de mon travail. »

„Neben meiner Rolle als Pianistin widme ich mein Schaffen der Kreation einer symbiotischen Verbindung zwischen klassischer Musik, Performance-Art und Kurzfilm. Ich möchte die Grenzen der Gattungen künstlerischer Berufe durchbrechen. In dieser transdisziplinären Ausdrucksform der Künste ist die klassische Musik als Wahrheit für mich Ursprung meiner Arbeit."

"Beyond my role as a pianist, I seek to create an osmotic work between classical music, performance art, and short film. I wish to break the codes and boundaries between artistic professions to liberate transdisciplinary expressions of the arts, while preserving classical music as the truth and origin of my work."

The word that links all three versions is osmotic. Not fusion. Not collage. Osmosis — the gradual, pressure-driven passage of one thing into another. Music is the substance. Film and performance are the membrane. The image arrives at the listener through the music, not instead of it.

I am aware that there is a version of this project that would reduce classical music to a soundtrack for pretty images of Paris. I am not making that project. Classical music is the truth and the origin of my work, and Instant Piano Paris is designed so that the music governs the image, not the other way around.

What does that mean in practice? It means every film begins with a complete musical reading. The phrasing of the music determines the pacing of the camera. The dynamic arc of the score determines the rhythm of the cut. The silences in the performance are protected from being filled by visual noise. If the film does something that would distract a listener from the music, it gets cut, regardless of how beautiful the image is.

Classical piano is one of the most rule-bound professions I know. There are right ways to bow. Right ways to sit. Right ways to walk onto the stage. Right venues. Right clothes. Right applause. These codes are not wrong — they are a tradition, and a tradition has dignity — but they have become, in many cases, a substitute for the music they were meant to serve.

Instant Piano Paris puts the pianist in places the codes do not cover. A stone square at dawn. A bridge in the rain. A canal in April with the wind coming off the water. The codes do not apply, so the music has to prove itself on its own. It always does. That is the discovery of the series.

The same logic applies to the collaborators. Each chapter is made with a different visual artist, filmmaker, dancer, or sculptor. The goal is not to add an extra discipline to the pianist's work. The goal is to let two art forms meet as equals, with classical music as the shared centre.

Instant Piano Paris lives on my YouTube channel. Each new chapter is announced on the newsletter, posted to Instagram, and eventually published here with a script and a short note on the making. The films can be watched in any order, but they are numbered, and the sequence rewards patience.

You can find all the films on my YouTube channel or on this website. The videos page collects them with their scores, their locations, and their collaborators. Enjoy.