Toy Piano Suite for Colorado Landscapes (2020)

toy piano with various media, ~16’

Toy Piano Suite for Colorado Landscapes is a multimedia work incorporating the diminutive musical instrument the toy piano into music and sound pieces inspired by the diversity and beauty of Colorado. Inspiration comes from the state’s rural, suburban, and urban ecologies, topographies, and voices of some of its citizens. It originally was slated as a live performance with video backing; now it is reimagined into a virtual, digital work that can exist online or screened as a short film. It encompasses traditionally notated music and graphic score (music scores that look like visual art), video accompaniments and improvisations, spoken word poetry, and collages of field recordings.

The movements of the work is as follows:

I. Sand Dunes (graphic score w/backing electronics (2 minutes)); Tristan McKay, piano

II. Black Canyon of the Gunnison (graphic score); Tristan McKay, piano and performance

III. ‘A meditation’, Audio texts by Celesté Martinez; (+ ‘Sky Gradients’ video) (3 min 40 sec); Soundtrack and video by Nathan Hall

IV. Storytellers I (Video); The Storytellers, voice and percussion; Nathan Hall, piano

V. Erosion (Photo graphic score from Mesa Verde interpreting sandstone 'holes') (approx. 2 minutes); Tristan McKay, piano

VI. Hovenweep, Audio poem by Celesté Martinez with image (map)

VII. Hiking Hovenweep (piano score)– (2 min); Tristan McKay, piano

VII. Cricket Interlude (Wood block quasi-improvisation with ‘Three Landscapes’ video accompanying) (2 min); Tristan McKay, performer

IX. Storytellers II (Video); The Storytellers, vocals and percussion; Nathan Hall, piano

Outtro: Grass on Keys; Tristan McKay, piano

Funded by INSITE Colorado/Andy Warhol Foundation. Managed through RedLine.