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

Mirabella

A tarentella for toy piano

Stephen Montague (b.1943)

1995

2

Kalimba

For toy piano and CD

Karlheinz Essl (b.1960)

2000

3

Four Essay-Variations

Theme¥Scherzando¥Ragtime¥

Waltz¥Non tempo¥Coda

Greg Millar (b.1977)

2003

4

East Broadway

For toy piano and CD

Julia Wolfe (b.1958)

2003

5

Suite for Toy Piano

I¥II¥III¥IV¥V

John Cage (1912-1992)

1948

6

KamalaÕs Dream

For toy piano, miniature sound system, oil lamp, and CD

Islay Monsoon (Phyllis Chen) (b.1978)

2006

7

Mandala

I¥II¥III¥IV

Wendy Mae Chambers (b.1953)

1984

8

Piece for Toy Piano

For toy piano, music box, and frying pan

Ray Jaspers (Phyllis Chen) (b.1978)

2005

9

Exposiciones

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:

 

 

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/.