TRICIA DAWN WILLIAMS combines the classical keyboard with the vintage tone of toy pianos and innovative pulses of electronic music. This diverse soundtrack is accompanied by a series of video projections, seducing the audience to a fantastical interdisciplinary journey
In May 2024 pianist Tricia Dawn Williams launched Toy Piano+ supported by Arts Council Malta. This project presents 2 concert recitals, 8 outreach programmes with children, 13 new commissions to local and international composers, 3 video-art projections and an album release under the international record label Parma.
The first concert in this series, entitled Tiny Keys – Big Sounds, took place on May 3 at Spazju Kreattiv. In this concert Williams premiered ten new works written for toy piano, electronic music and small percussion instruments by composers Albert Garzia, Alexander Vella Gregory, Atau Tanaka, Christopher Muscat, Daniel Cauchi, Kris Spiteri, Luc Houtkamp, Mariella Cassar, Olivia Kieffer and Veronique Vella.
On Saturday 25 January, at the Malta Society of Arts in Valletta, Williams will present her second concert of the series: The Illusionist's Magic Box. In this concert Williams will premier three new works that have been commissioned to combine the classical sound of the piano with the vintage tones of the toy piano. Furthermore Williams commissioned three video artists to create a visual narrative to accompany the live performance of the music creating an interdisciplinary dialogue between music and visual arts.
The concert takes its name from the title of the first piece on the programme: The Illusionist’s Magic Box by British composer Paul Max Edlin. As the composer explains, the sound of the toy piano “evokes childhood, magic, illusion, and sheer fantasy. It arouses thoughts of an unreal or lost world”. Besides the sound of the piano and the toy piano, Edlin also creates an electronic soundscape that acts as a cohesive bond between the two keyboards. Or as Edlin explains in his programme note: “allowing the two pianos (real and toy) to expand their spells from their ‘box of tricks’, yet yielding more unforeseen results.”
The video accompanying the live performance of this composition will portray a sand art animation by Italian artist Gabriella Compagnone. Sand art is a fascinating technique where the artist creates a sequence of images by applying the sand on a back-lit glass, drawing lines and figures with her own hands. Sand art conjures a sense of illusion and magic on a ‘lightbox’ that is most fitting for the ‘box of tricks’ described by the composer.
The second commission premiered by Williams in this upcoming concert is Four Toy Toccatas by American composer Scott McAllister. Like many toccatas, this work is meant to show off the various skills of the performer. McAllister explains how “one of the goals for this composition was to combine the two instruments (piano and toy piano) to make it sound like one extended keyboard instrument. Like other works of McAllister, Four Toy Toccatas is eclectic and weaves many genres of music together such as jazz, rock and classical styles.
McAllister’s Four Toy Toccatas will be accompanied by the monochromatic video by Jim Aitchison who is a visual artist as well as a composer. Aitchison’s video for this project is based on an abstract sculpture of a piano that his daughter made when she was a child and footage of a musical box mechanism that his daughter brought back as a gift from Paris.
The final premiere and commission on the programme is A Story Left Untold by Ruben Zahra who has composed the music as well as created the video for this project. A Story Left Untold is Zahra’s first experimentation with AI. The music was created by processing original music excerpts through AI platforms and allowing the algorithm to “extend” the music. “The point of departure for each excerpt was my own music, however the AI algorithm would extend the music in a different direction and I would transcribe these new ideas to embellish my own score” explains Zahra. The video animation was also generated using a variety of AI tools, mainly applying text to image and image to video algorithms.
Besides the three commissions by Edlin, McAllister and Zahra, the concert on January 25 will also include music by Regis Campo, John Psathas, Olivia Kieffer and Atau Tanaka.
Toy Piano+ includes an outreach program of eight concerts for children taking place in schools and local councils. This programme presents a script written by Trevor Żahra and narrated by actor Joseph Galea accompanied by a live toy piano programme. The story is about two children who find shelter from a storm inside an old toy shop. As the children explore their surroundings they discover an automaton doll playing a toy piano. Other vintage toys come to life in a wonderland of clockwork figurines accompanied by the music of the live toy piano, small percussion instruments and an electronic soundtrack. This outreach project will take place at The Malta Visual and Performing Arts School, Vittoriosa Primary School, Kalkara Primary School, St Monica Primary School, St Joseph School, Mġarr Primary School, St Francis School and the Żejtun Local Council.
The 13 compositions commissioned for this project will be recorded professionally and released as an album by PARMA Recordings on all music streaming platforms.
The Illusionist’s Magic Box by Tricia Dawn Williams will take place on Saturday 25 January at the Malta Society of Arts in Valletta at 7pm. This concert is supported by Arts Council Malta. Tickets for this concert can be obtained from www.triciadawnwilliams.com/concerts
Photos by Matthew Mirabelli
Nov 24, 2024
Source: Encore Arts & Culture Magazine