{"id":15078,"date":"2013-10-06T07:27:41","date_gmt":"2013-10-06T12:27:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/?p=15078"},"modified":"2013-10-06T20:53:41","modified_gmt":"2013-10-07T01:53:41","slug":"creation-and-collaboration-a-5th-birthday-ode-to-torontos-toy-piano-composers-collective","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/2013\/10\/06\/creation-and-collaboration-a-5th-birthday-ode-to-torontos-toy-piano-composers-collective\/","title":{"rendered":"Creation and collaboration: A 5th birthday ode to Toronto’s Toy Piano Composers collective"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Musicians<\/a>
Musicians rehearsing for Toy Piano Composers’ fifth birthday concert (Instagram photo).<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I have a conflicted relationship with new music. I\u2019ve spent considerable time reading about it as a student, learning to perform it as a musician, facilitating it working for Musicwork<\/em>s magazine, and supporting it through the Canadian Music Centre. If you had asked me five years ago to sculpt a caricature of new music in Toronto, I would have put something wonderfully creative into a cardboard box, and hid it in a stairwell.<\/p>\n

The hardest part of the concert-going experience is finding an entry point …<\/p>\n

Enter the Toy Piano Composers.<\/p>\n

This group of 20- and 30-somethings banded together shortly after graduating from composition programs in Toronto, with the realization that if they wanted to make a go of composition in this city, they\u2019d have to create their own opportunities.<\/p>\n

Five years later, Monica Pearce and Chris Thornborrow, along with Elisha Denburg, Tim Crouch and a group of dedicated composers and musicians, have established what I would argue to be this city\u2019s most innovative, most successful new music concert series.<\/p>\n

What is success? It\u2019s creating opportunities for collaboration and creation between interesting people and their ideas, and then packaging that output in a concert environment that invites people in. Gets them engaged.<\/p>\n

Success is packing houses every concert. It\u2019s offering ticket prices that don\u2019t break the bank ($15\/$20). It\u2019s accruing leagues of groupies (myself included) that faithfully collect the awesome concert-inspired pins created for every show. It\u2019s building a community of adventure-seekers that chooses a TPC concert out of hundreds of entertainment options on any given evening.<\/p>\n

The Toy Piano Composers supply a well-thought-out evening three times a year that is short (often just over an hour \u2014 a prelude to further evening escapades), licensed (this is brilliant), and never predictable.<\/p>\n

From opera shorts (including a particularly memorable composition by Monica Pearce about a privileged bride-to-be painstakingly selecting her wedding cake to the chagrin of the baker and her hapless fianc\u00e9) to compositions inspired by film (including a beautifully evocative piece by Chris Thornborrow based on the Academy Award-nominated short Walking<\/em> by Ryan Larkin), these performances are feasts for the eyes and ears.<\/p>\n

Full stop!<\/p>\n

I am floored by the diversity of the Toy Piano Composers\u2019 music and the diversity of their audience. Every time.<\/p>\n

Congratulations on 5 great years, Toy Piano Composers. I can\u2019t wait to see where you take us in the next five.<\/p>\n

+++<\/p>\n

The Toy Piano Collective celebrates its half0decade with TPC TURNS 5 on October 12 at 8 p.m., at Gallery 345 on Sorauren Ave in Parkdale. Details at www.toypianocomposers.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Andrea Warren<\/em>
\nis former operations manager for <\/em>Musicworks magazine, which is all about new music. She is now marketing and communications manager for Attila Glatz Concert Productions Inc, in Toronto.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I have a conflicted relationship with new music. I\u2019ve spent considerable time reading about it as a student, learning to perform it as a musician, facilitating it working for Musicworks magazine, and supporting it through the Canadian Music Centre. If you had asked me five years ago to sculpt a caricature of new music in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":15127,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[3,4,14,19,30,31,36,37,38,63,1],"tags":[6451,3989,2370,6474,3369],"yst_prominent_words":[],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2013\/10\/tpc.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9bakr-3Vc","amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15078"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15078"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15078\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15128,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15078\/revisions\/15128"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15127"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15078"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15078"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15078"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=15078"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}