A simple page devoted to the
music of Phyllis Chen, multiple
award-winning classical pianist, and brilliantly creative artist and musician
on the toy piano.
When I originally created this page there was little information and no music of Ms. Chen's available on the web, and I wanted to make her music available to friends and lucky people who stumbled across the page. Happily, Ms. Chen went on to compose and record the soundtrack for the musical stage production of Coraline, and has now released multiple recordings. Find out more about Phyllis Chen's work at her web site.
The materials on this page were provided by Ms. Chen, along with permission to post them.
They were recorded at her PhD recital concert at Indiana University on Friday, April 14, 2006.
I have taken the
liberty of editing out the often wild and uproarious applause, to make a more
enjoyable listening experience (among other things, the applause was typically
much louder than the music!), but rest assured, the audience, composed largely
of music students and faculty, enjoyed and appreciated this music as much as
you will, and let it be known in no uncertain terms after each
composition. So, without further
ado:
Use this link to download a zipped
archive of the entire concert in mp3/160kpbs format (60 MB). (This is an easy way to download all of
the individual pieces listed below.)
Or listen to and download individual pieces below (also in
mp3/160kbps format):
Track |
Name |
Composer |
Composition Year |
1 |
A tarentella for toy piano |
Stephen Montague (b.1943) |
1995 |
2 |
For toy piano and CD |
Karlheinz Essl (b.1960) |
2000 |
3 |
Theme¥Scherzando¥Ragtime¥ Waltz¥Non tempo¥Coda |
Greg Millar (b.1977) |
2003 |
4 |
For toy piano and CD |
Julia Wolfe (b.1958) |
2003 |
5 |
I¥II¥III¥IV¥V |
John Cage (1912-1992) |
1948 |
6 |
For toy piano, miniature sound system, oil lamp, and CD |
Islay Monsoon (Phyllis Chen) (b.1978) |
2006 |
7 |
I¥II¥III¥IV |
Wendy Mae Chambers (b.1953) |
1984 |
8 |
For toy piano, music box, and frying pan |
Ray Jaspers (Phyllis Chen) (b.1978) |
2005 |
9 |
For toy piano and CD |
Andrian Pertout (b.1963) |
2005 |
All of the information in the table above is embedded in the
mp3 tags, so you should just be able to import the set of mp3s into your
favorite music player and have everything at your fingertips.
Enjoy!
Two pictures of Phyllis Chen in concert, used without
permission, from the International
Contemporary Ensemble web page about Phyllis Chen:
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I hope you get to see Ms. Chen in concert some day, because
as lovely as this recording is, it doesnÕt quite do justice to the strength,
beauty, and shear virtuosity of her live performance.
Note: All music is copyright Phyllis Chen, who created all
this beautiful music. Any problems
with the web site are purely my fault, and you can contact me, Larry Yaeger,
via my web site: http://shinyverse.org/larryy/.