Kyle Gann:

Imaginary Isle (2003)

Around 2002 the great music-engineering genius Trimpin commissioned a number of composers to write two-minute pieces for nine computer-controlled toy pianos for a museum installation. The idea of the installation was that people could look at the list of composers, deposit a quarter, and hear any composer's piece they wanted to hear. My contribution Imaginary Isle used the spatial arrangement of the toy pianos to send a quasi-canon of scales creeping around the room and speeding up into poly-tempo textures moving through various keys. I chose the title because the result seemed somewhat exotic, perhaps quasi-Balinese.

Copyright 1997 Kyle Gann

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