[image: Guido van der Werve’s “chess piano” performance by Paradise Gonzalez, courtesy of Performa 2009] Guido van der Werve’s chess piano performance was given last Friday night at the Marshall Chess Club on West 10th Street, and according to the current issue of The Moment, “the game actually sang — or, at least, plunked tunefully.”

In the second-floor parlor room of the storied club (founded by the chess legend Frank Marshall, who held the United States championship title for 29 years beginning in 1909), the Dutch artist Guido van der Werve presented a chess piano concert. Facing off against an opponent from the Manhattan Chamber Orchestra, and rounded out by nine string players (two first violins, two second violins, two cellos, two violas and one bass), van der Werve offered a gentle meditation on the music of sport, and the sport of music. Surely it was one of the more elegant, low-key performances of Performa 09.

… for the record, the artist was, literally, playing a chess board — an elaborately constructed instrument of his own creation.

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