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THE SCOOP | Toy Piano Composers Launch Inaugural New Music Festival With The Bicycle Opera Project

By Michael Vincent on February 24, 2016

The Toy Piano Composers (Photo: Jeff Higgins)
The Toy Piano Composers (Photo: Jeff Higgins)

Toronto-based Toy Piano Composers (TPC) have announced the inaugural The Curiosity Festival, which will take place over five days between April 1st and 9th, 2016.

Founded in 2008, The Toy Piano Composers are a D.I.Y. collective of seven composers, who present their works with a unique and playful spin. They have since given over 120 premieres of chamber music, multi-media works, opera and orchestral concerts, and established themselves as Toronto’s go-to for composer-led contemporary music.

The Festival will open with two nights of indie-opera with the help of Toronto’s Bicycle Opera Project at the Arts and Letters Club. “Travelogue” will explore wanderlust via bicycle, car and rocketship (zoom!) through four new mini-operas. Composers include Monica Pearce (April), Elisha Denburg (Road Trip), August Murphy-King (My Mouth on Your Heart with a libretto by Colleen Murphy), and Tobin Stokes (Waterfront).

The Bicycle Opera Project
The Bicycle Opera Project

“Bicycle Opera is turning five this year, and what better birthday gift than four brand new operas, written specifically for us by our good friends at Toy Piano?” said Larissa Koniuk, Artistic Director of Bicycle Opera.

The festival shifts focus towards a sound installation called “Playback”, an immersive sound installation housed at the Canadian Music Centre (April 6 and 7). Curated by composer and sound artist Nancy Tam, small groups of 10 spectators will be led through a sonic experience surrounding existential questions about what it means to be a composer in the 21st-century.

The Toy Piano Composers’ Ensemble will close the festival with a performance of heavy metal-inspired works by composers Daniel Brophy, Alex Eddington, Ruth Guechtal, Fiona Ryan, Bekah Simms and Chris Thornborrow at Heliconian Hall.

TPC’s newly formed Curiosity Festival now makes Toronto home to four contemporary music festivals: U of T’s New Music Festival (Feb. 1-5, 2016), TSO‘s New Creations Festival (March 5–12, 2016),  and RCM’s 21C Festival (May 25-29, 2016).

Festival passes are available on the TPC website. Single Tickets go on sale in March.

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Michael Vincent
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