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A true odyssey of sound and drama, Dämmerung is an exploration of a new piano, metamorphosed by various preparations, and extended by an electronic device that literally transforms it into a loudspeaker. The work is the result of several years of collaboration between the Franco-Swiss pianist Cédric Pescia and the Swiss composer Kevin Juillerat. It was written in 2020 during a 6-month artistic residency in Berlin. It was premiered in Lausanne (CH) on 20 May 2022. The prepared piano is a piano modified by adding various objects and materials (screws, coins, patafix, pieces of rubber, etc.) on or between the strings of the instrument. This process was invented by the American composer John Cage in the 1940s, creating an exciting repertoire that Cédric Pescia has been playing for many years. After being introduced to Cage’s methods of preparation, Kevin Juillerat developed his own techniques, integrating other objects and their placement. The different types of preparation thus create harmonic and timbral zones that are explored throughout the piece, which unfolds as a long journey from the most “noisy” and distorted sounds to the ordinary sound of the few remaining unprepared notes. As for the harmonic material that guided all the preparation and writing of the piece, it is derived from a single melodic cell. Besides an electronic device is added to this preparation, offering a further level of metamorphosis of the instrument. Transducers are installed in the piano: these small contact loudspeakers are glued to the soundboard, so that all electronic sounds are filtered and diffused through it, creating an exceptional blend of timbres and homogeneity. These sounds were created from prepared piano samples – transformed, stretched, or enriched. Thus, through the play of false resonances, sound halos and textures, acoustic and electronic sounds merge into a material that is always fluid and organic. The title Dämmerung (which in German means both dusk and dawn) evokes an in-between and an uncertain state of transition. A music between light and shadow. A piano that is not really a piano, with its notes transformed by the preparation and the unreal sounds of the electronics that run through it. But also the circumstances of the composition of the piece: Berlin where it was written on the one hand, a city that has undergone numerous metamorphoses throughout history (World War II, the Wall, reunification, outrageous neo-liberalism, etc.); and on the other hand, 2020, the year in which it was written, which was severely marked by the COVID-19 pandemic – a strange period of waiting for a hoped-for return to normality or a hypothetical mutation in our society.