audio OM5LengTanNancarrow sound 2004-03-11 15:05:20 Conlon Nancarrow & Margaret Leng Tan Margaret Leng Tan performs the west coast premiere of Conlon Nancarrow's Three 2-Part Studies (1942), arranged by Tan, at the Other Minds Music Festival in 1999 at the Cowell Theater in San Francisco. Margaret Leng Tan, two toy pianos According to Tan: The published score of the Three 2-Part Studies bears the following dedication: "For Jürgen, a dearest friend, who found this score, forgotten in the dust of my studio." When I first embarked on my career as a toy pianist in 1995, I was ferreting around for pieces that would lend themselves to the toy piano. I had always thought Nancarrow would be a good bet given the toy piano's aggressively percussive nature. When I acquired two toy pianos with distinctly separate personalities, it seemed inevitable that the Three 2-Part Studies had to be heard on them. Even more formidable than the task of transcribing them was the feat of mastering the transcription. I would long ago have given up had I not been goaded on by the ultimate challenge - to render on a toy instrument the kind of virtuosity and precision that would lead Nancarrow to bypass the uncertainties of human excecution and invest his energies in the player piano's unfettered possibilities. The year before his death, I sent Nancarrow a garage recording of the Three Studies. His wife Yoko informed me that Nancarrow had thoroughly enjoyed them in their toy incarnation. - Margaret Leng Tan http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd-nc/1.0/ 1999-03-26 00:00:00 other_minds bernard@otherminds.org 2004-03-11 15:05:20 bernard 0 00:03:57 2004-05-11 10:14:50 bernard All Other Minds programs available, with additional print and photo materials, at http://www.radiOM.org. Coming soon you will be able to view our complete list of titles not yet digitized at http://www.radiOM.org/titles. Other Minds Other Minds 1 Avantgarde;20th Century Classical Other Minds 3937 audio_music1