Non-Piano/Toy Piano Weekend

In the organizer's words:

Serve! Backhand! Counter-attack! Forehand! Topspin! Block! Smash!

Margaret Leng Tan! Moritz Eggert! Frederike Möller! Karlheinz Essl! Mats O Hansson! Jana de Troyer! Phyllis Chen!

Please fasten your seat belts and hold on tight! Toy Piano Weekend 2025 ups the tempo: not only with a virtual ping-pong match with sensors and invisible players. The program also includes two quartets for toy pianos and stand mixers, as well as for punched tape music boxes, iPhone fans and talking instrumentalists.

But don't worry: before anyone gets dizzy from so much frenzied rotation, the infinitely soft, gentle sounds of straws, supermarket receipts and rustling paper bags provide sufficient peace and relaxation.

But that's not all: with toy piano legend Margaret Leng Tan from New York and creative powerhouse Moritz Eggert from Munich, the Toy Piano Weekend can boast two icons of new music as guest performers this time. Frederike Möller, founder of the Toy Piano Festival Düsseldorf, will lead through the program as moderator and performer, and with Karlheinz Essl, Mats O Hansson and Huihui Cheng, several composers who have long been closely associated with the festival will once again contribute world premieres.

Sascha Lino Lemke will contributeanother important part of the program with ID...ab, a large-scale epic about the eventful life of Ida Dehmel, who founded the GEDOK in Hamburg 99 years ago as a representative body for women artists of all kinds and was later driven to suicide by the National Socialists. The numerous choreographic elements of the piece will be staged under the direction of award-winning director and Ida Dehmel specialist Birgit Kajtna.

As always, Jana de Troyer, Kiloh Lee, Niko Yin and 11-year-old Anastasha Suchin will also be represented by very young composers, and last but not least, everything will also be a glittering birthday party, as the festival will also be celebrating Margaret Leng Tan's 80th birthday and Moritz Eggert's 60th.

So the curtain will be raised on flying ballroom staffets, the most unusual settings and instrumentations and, last but not least, two true legends of the international piano and toy piano scene: Serve! Counter! Smash! The Toy Piano Weekend 2025 surpasses itself.

Program Day I:
Introduction: Margaret Leng Tan in conversation with Frederike Möller: Icon in the Making
Frederike Möller: 'Waltz double' (2020) for toy pianos, water and samples
Mats O Hansson: UA for non-piano ensemble with 4 mixers
Erik Griswold: 'Dragon Ladies Don't Cry' (selection) for toy piano and toys
Anastascha Suchin: 'Rosie'. A Musical Horror Tale in Four Scenes (2024) for masked narrator, toy piano, bell, petals, telephone
Huihui Cheng: UA (2025) for saxophones and electronics
Genoel von Lilienstern: 'sun rise tool' (2011) for toy piano
Sascha Lino Lemke: 'ID...a' (2024) for four pianists, 1 concert grand piano and electronics