Steven Baxter Recital Studio
Yong Siew Toh Conservatory

11 September 2018 (Tu)
5:30 PM – 7:00 PM

ABOUT THE EVENT

Margaret Leng Tan, one of the world’s most celebrated contemporary pianists, will introduce the avant-garde piano and its groundbreaking transformations through the extended techniques of “the three C’s”, Cage, Cowell and Crumb. Ms. Tan will give a hands-on demonstration of John Cage’s famous invention, the prepared piano, the cluster and string piano innovations of Cage’s teacher, Henry Cowell, as well as the timbral magic of George Crumb’s interior piano universe. Also included in the discussion will be the notational challenges faced by composers of new music. There will be ample opportunity for questions. Open to composers, pianists, other musicians, and all with a lively curiosity.

The three Cs – Cage, Cowell and Crumb – laid the foundation for the extended language of the piano, conjuring forth tantalizing new sound possibilities from the piano’s interior. While their pioneering, now “classic avant-garde” accomplishments laid the foundation for future forays by experimentalists, the pianistic worlds of Cage, Cowell and Crumb remain sui generis, each an inimitably distinct, unmistakable sonic realm.

ABOUT MARGARET LENG TAN

Margaret Leng Tan is one of the most highly regarded performers of American experimental music. Tan, whose work embraces theatre, choreography, performance, is renowned as a pre-eminent John Cage interpreter and performer of American and Asian music transcending the piano’s conventional boundaries. She has been hailed by the Washington Post as “the formidable doyenne of the avant-garde piano [who] has built a career on upending tradition, pushing her instrument into fresh, no-holds-barred sonic worlds.”

READ MORE