Schroeder’s Minions

I am quoted in Rick Schulz’s article about the toy piano as serious instrument in last Sunday’s L.A. Times. It’s a preview piece for a toy piano concert being given by Phyllis Chen this coming Sunday. The thing that Rick and I discussed that didn’t get in the article – and having written for daily papers myself, I completely understand what limitations kept it out – was that, before Margaret Leng Tan began championing the instrument, composer Wendy Chambers had commissioned a whole repertoire of works for it in the late 1980s, including my own Paris Intermezzo. The history of the serious toy piano starts in 1948 with Cage, of course, but Wendy never gets enough credit for her galvanizing contribution.