"It builds and then comes up from behind and down in front of you," Johnson says. "Then, in the middle of these amazing resonances, he'll play just one note and it will change everything."
She herself will end the festival on February 27, playing alongside drummer Riki Gooch of Trinity Roots, but not until William Green has given us Lilburn next Saturday, jazzman Jonathan Crayford a solo turn a week later and Berlin-based Magda Mayas has opened up a hands-on-strings soundworld on February 21. "You wouldn't even recognise Magda's music as coming from a piano," Johnson says.
Next week sees a four-night season of a radical reworking of Purcell's Dido and Aeneas that coincides serendipitously with Johnson's festival.
Unstuck Opera's production of the 17th-century classic is not your standard fare.
Director Frances Moore talks of surprises in store, apart from the dancing conga line and quotes from Thelonious Monk and Beyonce that composer/arranger Alex Taylor has already talked about.
Postmodernism aside, Moore has always been "fascinated by the question of how much love is a choice that we ourselves make", which is one of the themes of the opera. She also talks of "female narratives around grief", drawing parallels with the songs of Taylor Swift and Selena Gomez.
Director and composer appreciate the Parekowhai piano, played by Liam Wooding as part of a four-man band that can stretch to recorders and viola, bassoon and bass guitar.
For Moore the instrument symbolises "a collision between two different cultures, that is at the heart of this love story between a Trojan soldier and the Queen of Carthage. The opera starts and finishes with the piano, which becomes something of a bit of a stand-in for Dido herself."
With the many galleries offered by Te Uru, this production is not locked in the piano room. "It's been conceived in promenade style," Moore explains. "I couldn't resist pouring the audience into the different spaces of the building as the opera progresses. We didn't want people to come along and think we're going to be in just one gallery and pretend it's an opera studio."
Amongst a cast of young singers Moore is particularly pleased to have Amy Jansen as Dido. "You need to fall in love with Dido to feel her grief at the end," she says. "Amy is so expressive, both vocally and in movement, that she completely inhabits the role and makes that possible."
