(soft classical piano music) (soft classical piano music continues) (soft classical piano music continues) - The piano movers are going to take it off.

They'll just roll it up here.

- He is here?

- Yeah.

- Piano up?

- Mm-hm.

- And then guests this way out?

- Yeah.

- Okay.

(soft classical piano music continues) - [Narrator] Classical pianist Hunter Noack had an idea, perform 25 outdoor concerts in some of the most remote and beautiful places in Oregon.

He calls this project "In a Landscape."

- There is something about a nine-foot American Steinway concert grand piano that I just knew that I wanted the biggest piano out in these magnificent landscapes.

Of course, nobody that owns a nine-foot Steinway is going to let me borrow it to take it to Fort Rock and Pendleton and Astoria and up and down through coastal ranges sitting in, you know, 90 degree heat and then overnight near-freezing temperatures.

(lively classical piano music) So Jordan Schnitzer came through, and he got a beautiful 1912 Steinway D for the project.

(lively classical piano music continues) Basically, this whole project is kind of like a way for us to just camp, okay, and make music.

- [Friend] In really cool places.

- In really cool places.

(lively classical music) (lively classical music continues) Growing up in Sunriver, I grew up hunting and fishing with my dad and kayaking on the river, and we were just always outdoors.

I love performing, and I love classical music, but there aren't many classical musicians who also love to hunt and fish.

You know, I am not out here hunting and fishing from my piano stool.

But the concept just kind of came from this desire to bring those two things together, being outdoors and playing classical music.

(lively classical music continues) - And we've been talking about just this kind of concept now for like a couple of years.

- And it's kind of like a constant conversation.

It was months of kind of going back and forth between do we make the trailer enclosed, or do we keep the piano on its legs?

(Hunter laughs) Keep it going.

Oh!

Hang on, let me just check it.

I mean, it's kind of nice there.

It's actually centered within the trees and the... (dramatic piano music) (dramatic piano music continues) (tool scraping) (hand tapping) - That may be a new jack design.

I just stumbled upon it.

(laughs) - [Friend] You ready?

- Only in the last six months did I start working with a couple friends, none of us really professional engineers, but we came up with this plan that we thought, "That should work."

(forceful piano music) And then at a certain point a few months before the show, my friend Nom said, "At some point, you're just going to have to take the risk and try it."

So that night I ordered these hydraulic lifts.

My friend Nom came over, and we lifted the piano up, took the legs off, lowered it down, and that was kind of our testing.

And the next time we did that, it was on the trailer.

Okay.

My friend Will, he's the stage manager, and he's borrowed his dad's pickup truck, which is an awesome truck.

(laughs) The piano is actually without its legs, sandwiched between two layers of foam.

And we just hitched the trailer up to the truck, and it's a pretty smooth ride for the piano, considering it's just on a flatbed trailer.

I just bought it on Craigslist.

(laughs) (piano thudding) (elegant classical piano music) (elegant classical piano music continues) Works.

- And you'll see the power light come on, and then press- - And then hit the volume.

- Yep, and press and hold.

- Okay.

- As I thought, "Okay, well I can bring a piano outside.

That's not a problem.

But how will it sound?"

(elegant classical piano music continues) because the sound just kind of doesn't bounce off anything.

It just evaporates.

So what we do is we mic all the instruments.

It goes into a mixing board.

And we had an amazing sound engineer, David Lindell, who mixes all the sound, artificially adds reverb to make it sound like we're performing in a chamber hall.

And that's the sound that's broadcast in real time to the audience, but they have the freedom to wander 200 meters away with wireless headphones and still have the sound of a concert hall.

The ideal scenario is that the audience is not necessarily paying attention to me, but that my performance is providing a soundtrack to their experience of the landscape.

(tender classical music) (tender classical music continues) We have guest performers at most of the shows.

I play sometimes with a couple amazing musicians from Portland, Pansy Chang and Nicholas Crosa and Nelly Kovalev.

And then wherever possible, I feature a local young artist.

So here in Eugene, we have Karlie Roberts, who was a winner for the Eugene Symphony Young Artists Competition.

(tender classical music continues) (birds chirping) (lively piano music) (lively piano music continues) - Okay.

- My mom ran the Sunriver Music Festival, and every year they would have a Van Cliburn medalist come and be the soloist with the orchestra.

And those pianists were the heroes.

They would sort of waltz in and be fabulous and play with the orchestra.

And those were the celebrities of Sunriver.

So think that's partially what drew me to the piano.

(lively piano music continues) When I was 14, I decided to go to Interlochen.

That's when I really started taking music more seriously.

It kind of brought out this competitive nature in me that I like.

I liked being the last one in the practice room, and I liked, you know, getting up at six and going and doing my Hanon exercises.

And it was nice to be around other kids that were my age that were taking music so seriously.

I studied with John Perry in Los Angeles at the University of Southern California.

And then I got my master's in London at Guild Hall School of Music and Drama.

(lively classical piano music) I mean, there are so many sites across Oregon that I fell in love with when I was scouting.

It's really fun.

It's so great to wake up in the morning and just be outside with a team of people, and we're all working towards something, and we have offices like this.

(lively classical piano music continues) (lively classical piano music continues) (audience cheers and applauds) (no audio) - [Announcer] "Oregon Art Beat" shares the stories of Oregon's amazing artists, and member support completes the picture.

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