When Clara Yang plays the piano, she seems lost in another world. Sometimes, she plays slow, her fingertips barely touching the keys, the sound soft and sweet like a lullaby. But then, suddenly, she leans forward, and her hands forcefully race across the keyboard as if she’s fighting a battle. Her playing is both aggressive and sensitive, fierce and beautiful.
One reviewer described the music she plays as “wrestling and dancing and running wild with a sparkler.” Others have called her athletic, thundering, and indefatigable.
Yang is a music professor at UNC-Chapel Hill and a classically trained pianist who’s been playing since she was 4 years old. She’s performed all over the world, from Carnegie Hall in New York City to the Forbidden City Concert Hall in Beijing. Her first solo album “Folding Time” won a Global Music Awards gold medal. And her performances have been broadcast on major radio stations across the nation and globe.
Before 2020, her whole world was focused on in-person experiences, from performing in front of large audiences to teaching students how to play the piano. But the pandemic forced her to reimagine how to engage with her listeners. She moved her classes online and connected with colleagues and friends via text and video messaging.
She was using technology more than ever, and it got her thinking.
“It made me realize that we are tightly connected to technology in every way possible during our everyday life,” Yang says. “From small things like our phones [and] social media to bigger things like AI development. In fact, every single [musical] instrument is a piece of technology that people invented years ago to make music.”
Yang wanted to explore this relationship between humanity and technology by collaborating with others across genres. She hoped to create an entirely new experience.
“I wanted to create a world for the audience to reflect on the emotional impact of what AI and all these different technologies are doing to our psychology,” she says.
Impact Report
In the musical performance “Ex Machina,” pianist Clara Yang combines music from composers at Carolina and beyond to guide listeners through an exploration of the relationship between humanity and technology.
Research suggests that music-based interventions may be helpful for a range of health conditions. Music benefits both physical and psychological health, releasing chemicals in the brain that promote social bonds and evoke emotions and memories, according to the National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health.
And so, “Ex Machina: Piano in an AI World” was born.
Research with rhythm
Yang’s process for creating a show often involves research on a theme or topic. For “Ex Machina,” she collaborated with 10 composers to explore humanity and technology through their music.
Musicians conduct research through creative practice, music analysis, historical inquiry, and performance studies, often blending scholarship with artistic expression. Unlike traditional academics, their research may include composing, performing, or interpreting music, making their work experiential and interpretive.
“Research for a performer is very different in the sense that we have to use our whole body to create these beautiful sounds that we’re after,” Yang says. “It’s intellectual but also very, very physical. You have to use your imagination to create a landscape in each particular piece.”
For their piece “Conception,” Yang and electric guitarist Yvette Young created a hauntingly beautiful musical exploration of the birth, evolution, and final moments of AI consciousness. Blending electric and acoustic guitar, violin, piano, and electronics, the piece unfolds like a dream — shifting from abstract textures to emotionally charged melodies shaped in collaboration with technology. The work culminates in a poignant farewell monologue from the AI itself, blurring the line between machine and human emotion.
“We wanted to create this emotional moment to show that our lives are finite,” Yang shares. “The final monologue from the AI being in ‘Conception’ resonates with this idea. It’s heartbreaking but also very human.”
Mixed media messages
Yang didn’t want “Ex Machina” to be a typical performance. She wanted it to be immersive, to include visuals that are just as important as the music, and to make the audience feel like they’re part of the experience.
She reached out to her friend and new media artist Xuan to create large visual installations that surround the stage while the performers play. Xuan used 15 projectors to move a series of textured and colorful images across three screens.
“With music written by so many different composers, my goal was to weave a throughline aesthetically while making sure each compositional voice remains distinct,” Xuan explains. “I experimented with a variety of mediums, from ice to ink to handwriting to purely generative media.”
Yang adds: “I really wanted my audience to experience music in this way that they would feel like they’re living in this new, unknown, and hopefully fascinating world.”
After two years of developing the project, “Ex Machina” premiered in 2024. The 75-minute performance includes 11 composed works across three acts and a postlude. Carolina composers Allen Anderson, Stephen Anderson, Suzi Analog, and Lee Weisert wrote new music for the show.
“It was my first time trying to perform and compose together with nonclassical musicians,” Yang shares. “It gave me a glimpse into what it means to be a great artist across genres, and there are a lot of common threads: the dedication, an almost obsessive attention to details, and this overwhelming urge to create to reflect on the human experience.”