New England noise-mongers might be interested in checking out
a Toy Piano Festival and Symposium that's being held on Nov. 3 and 4 at Clark
University in Worcester. Thus spake the press release: "The compositions range from a microtonal / related-complex-tempo-structures tape piece built from toy piano samples to an extended free improvisation by Steven Drury's Callithumpian Consort with an 'extensible' toy piano instrument (a computer-assisted, post-prepared-piano noise-maker). Music will be performed using laptop computers as instruments, and computers will be used to process live-performed toy piano. Symposium presentations are divided into two sessions: 'listening' and
'composing/performing.' The listening topics include a discussion of Milton Babbitt's and John Cage's writing in the context of Frederick Hollander's toy ballet from Dr. Seuss's film The 5000 Fingers of Dr. T., a narratological analysis of Radiohead's 'Idioteque', and a theoretical account of listening to
'ubiquitous' music. In the second category, there are talks on German techno-chameleon Uwe Schmidt,
'networked performance blogs' and a recent public space installation. Kyle Gann, composer and music critic from The Village Voice, will deliver the keynote address, 'The Toy Piano in the Post-Prohibitive Age,' on Saturday, November 5 at 7 p.m." I haven't encountered this many scare-quotes since David Spade was on Saturday Night Live, but it all sounds cool.
