Composer and Producer Kelly Moran's Prepared Piano Meets Electronica, In-Studio

Soundcheck | Dec 18, 2025

New York-based classically trained composer and musician Kelly Moran’s music draws on everything from classical to dance to metal, but ends up sounding like none of those. She has become known for her music for prepared piano – a regular piano whose strings have things like metal or wood placed on the strings to alter the sound. Moran has also worked with electronic keyboards, and has recorded music for unaltered, completely acoustic piano. (She has also composed for classical musician Margaret Leng Tan, toured with Oneohtrix Point Never and FKA Twigs, and worked with other visionary contemporaries like Kelsey Lu and Yves Tumor.) Her 2025 record, Don’t Trust Mirrors (Warp Records), combines all three kinds of keyboards. Kelly Moran has brought her audio interface, her tools, and her bags of screws and bolts. She has prepared our piano, and plays in-studio. 

Set list: 1. Don't Trust Mirrors 2. Prism Drift 3. Vesela

Kelly Moran on sampling her own instrument and production techniques

Kelly Moran's Track by Track notes on Don't Trust Mirrors

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