Composer Tom Williams used Kyma to extensively transform the sonic materials in his 2023 acousmatic composition Piano Trace, performed at multiple festivals including Jauna Muzika 2023 in Vilnius, Noisefloor 2024 in Lisbon; Spatial Audio Gathering, DMU, Leicester; NYCEMF2024, New York. Williams, who has a doctorate in music composition from Boston University, currently heads the Music Production MA program at Coventry University.
Piano Trace is conceived as an unfolding of trace material that marks its original source: soundings made on an upright piano. Williams writes:
This is my piano. The piano that has been by my side as a tool for composition but never, until now, the actual source of my composition. A pocketful of playful recordings from the soundboard, piano keys, pedals and strings are the sonic roots. Throughout, and within the transformations and messing-up of the source sounds, there lies an inherent trace, a timbral DNA, a semblance of sonic integrity that is the ephemeral body of Piano Trace.