City Hall Wing, Level 2, Singapore Courtyard
National Gallery Singapore
23-24 January 2019 (W-Th)
7.30 PM – 10:00 PM, two intervals
Free (registration required, see below)
Visitors are advised to dress comfortably as seating will be on the steps of the Singapore Courtyard.
MINIMALISM REDUX: Minimalist Music From Its Antecendents To Its Offshoots
Margaret Leng Tan, presenter
Margaret Leng Tan is one of the foremost interpreters of John Cage’s music and a leading figure in experimental music. Minimalism Redux is a marathon celebration of Minimalist music.
Enjoy Tan’s piano renditions of historic Minimalist pieces never previously performed in Asia.
This performance is held in conjunction with the exhibition Minimalism: Space. Light. Object. which runs from 16 November 2018 to 14 April 2019.
NOTE
Please ensure you have a registration ticket for the performance at Singapore Courtyard Level 2, City Hall Wing. You will need to present your ticket, along with your confirmation email, for admittance into the event.
ABOUT MARGARET LENG TAN
“Leng Tan, a priestess of modernism and minimalism as well as a pianist second to none in the depth and intensity of sound she gets from any keyboard.”
—Mark Swed, Los Angeles Times
Margaret Leng Tan, whose work embraces theatre, choreography, performance, has established herself as a major force in the American avant-garde. She is renowned as a pre-eminent John Cage interpreter and for her performances of American and Asian music that transcend the piano’s conventional boundaries. After Cage’s death in 1992, she was chosen as the featured performer in a tribute to his memory at the 45th Venice Biennale.
Margaret Leng Tan is also widely recognised as a pioneer of the toy piano. In her groundbreaking 1997 CD, The Art of the Toy Piano, she elevated a humble toy to the status of a real instrument. Critics acknowledge her as the world’s first toy virtuoso, where her diminutive music-theatre of nostalgia and humour has delighted audiences at festivals around the world.
In 2015, Tan celebrated her 70th birthday with the birth of a new work Curios, written for her by American composer Phyllis Chen for toy piano and toy instruments, celebrating the bizarre world of the circus. The work received its world premiere at the Singapore International Festival of Arts and toured the Brisbane Festival. She also received the Cultural Medallion in 2015, Singapore’s highest accolade for artists.
