The first time I heard pianist Phyllis Chen a few years ago, she convinced me of the toy piano's potential as a serious instrument, and with her most recent album, The Little Things (New Focus), she demonstrates just how broad that potential is.
In addition to being a virtuoso on toy piano, Chen has arguably become its most fervent advocate. Since 2007 she's organized the UnCaged Toy Piano Composition Competition (the title is a nod to John Cage, a key early advocate via his 1948 work "Suite for Toy Piano"), and the project has generated an impressively broad and growing literature for the instrument.…
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