How toy pianos help Singaporean musician tell her OCD story
Margaret Leng Tan talks about weird instruments and ‘the magic of timing’, following her Hong Kong performance of ‘Dragon Ladies Don’t Weep’
At 80 years old, Margaret Leng Tan is a meticulous timekeeper – not just of days and years, but of the silent spaces between the notes she plays on her toy pianos.
The Singapore-born, New York-based musician has left her mark on the history of 20th century avant-garde music. A classically trained pianist, she became the first woman to obtain a doctoral degree in music from New York’s Juilliard School, in 1971, a decade after winning a scholarship there.
Later, she became a key interpreter of the music of her mentor John Cage, especially works requiring unconventional keyboards, such as prepared pianos and her instruments of choice: toy pianos.
“I use all these objects as part of my show. But these are no longer objects – they become musical instruments,” she says during a recent interview with the Post, gesturing towards her collection of toy pianos, including a second-hand one she has toured with since buying it on eBay for US$45.
She adds that she even uses cat food tins, china dishes and bicycle bells, the latter of which she calls an instrument with a “very beautiful sound”.
