Extensible Toy Piano Festival Promises to Bring Out the Kid in Everyone

The toy piano has a deceptively simple mechanism — plastic hammers hitting steel rods — but the instrument produces a rich and quirky sound palette. David Claman, assistant professor of music at the College of the Holy Cross, was teaching a course in Electronic and Experimental music a couple years ago and rediscovered pieces by experimental American composer John Cage, who brought the toy piano from a treasured plaything to a bona fide musical instrument with his Suite for Toy Piano (1948). Since Claman is not a pianist, he asked music major Matt Jaskot ’06 to perform a few of the pieces.

"He did a beautiful job and I was struck by the charming sound of the toy piano," Claman recalls.

Claman and Matt Malsky, associate professor of music at Clark University, then had the idea of doing something new with the instrument. They recorded digital samples of all the notes on a toy piano and, under the moniker The Extensible Toy Piano Project, posted them on a Web site for composers to download and use to compose new pieces.

Last spring, The Extensible Toy Piano Project sponsored an international composition competition that attracted dozens of entries from around the world. The project will culminate with a festival at Clark University on Nov. 4 and 5, which will feature the winners of the competition in two concerts and a symposium, "Play!: Contemporary Composition, Technology and Listening."

"Matt and I judged the pieces based on their sounds, creativity, and concept. In addition, we wanted the collection of pieces to showcase a variety of aesthetic approaches to make for a varied festival. We received pieces from all over the world. One composer shipped a special toy piano all the way from Japan to be used in his piece. We have many wonderful pieces. Originally, we had planned on a single concert, but we received so many good pieces that we decided to add a second concert," says Claman.

The aim of the project is to bring the instrument into the 21st century. It has been almost 50 years since John Cage defined experimental music in terms of the contemplation of sound and the use of technology.

"John Cage was the first person to write ‘serious’ music for this child’s instrument in the 1940s," says Claman. "As is often the case with Cage, however, there was a certain amount of playfulness in the pieces as well.

"Matt and I wanted to update the instrument by including contemporary elements such as electronics and computers. One of the reasons for the festival is to give some attention to the playful aspect of music making. So often contemporary concert music is surrounded by an atmosphere of utmost seriousness which I believe many people feel put off by. Cage believed, as do I, that profound and playful music can comfortably coexist, even within the same piece."

Claman also says the concert is a social event, and this is a way to bring people together for pleasure and aesthetic enjoyment while promoting contemporary music.

Music will be performed using laptop computers as instruments, and computers will be used to process live-performed toy piano. The concerts will present nine world premieres by composers from Japan, Germany, Australia, the UK, Greece and throughout the United States. Featured solo performers include Phyllis Chen (International Contemporary Ensemble/Chicago) and John McDonald (Tufts University).

Claman and Malsky have plans to produce a CD of the winning compositions.

The project has attracted several heavyweights from the music world. Esteemed pianist Stephen Drury of the New England Conservatory in Boston, is bringing his improvisation ensemble, the Callithumpian Consort on Nov. 4. As part of the symposium on Nov. 5, Kyle Gann, composer and music critic from The Village Voice, will deliver the keynote address "The Toy Piano in the Post-Prohibitive Age" on Nov. 5 at 7 p.m. Also part of the symposium, there will be talks ranging from the influence of technology on musical performance to contemporary music that the critically-acclaimed band Radiohead makes.

The Extensible Toy Piano Festival is sponsored in part by the Group for Electronic Music (a joint endeavor by Clark University and the College of the Holy Cross) and the Higgins School of Humanities at Clark. All events will be held at Clark University’s Traina Center for the Arts, 22 Downing St. Worcester, and are free and open to the public.

For more information and a schedule of events, visit www.clarku.edu/xtp/xtp.html.