David Bohn - Toy Piano - Second Set

A native of Wisconsin, David Bohn In his career as an organist, has given premieres of over fifty organ works. He currently resides in West Allis, Wisconsin, and is the organist and choir director at St. John's Evangelical Lutheran Church in West Milwaukee. David Bohn is a strong advocate for both the Toy Piano and miniature forms in composition. Fifteen-Minutes-of-Fame and his 100-Note Toy Piano Project exemplify his commitment and dedication to the instrument and the genre.

Concert Dates

  • June 3, 2022 - Music on the Hill -- St. John XXIII Concert series, Wisconsin
  • June 4, 2022 - Virtual Concert Halls

15 one-minute selections for David Bohn and Toy Piano (second set)

  • "It is necessary to unite people with love" (a sentence by Lev)

    Oleg Bezborodko

    Oleg Bezborodko is a Ukrainian pianist and composer. His works have been performed throughout the world. After studies in Ukraine and Switzerland he obtained a Ph.D. from the Ukrainian National Academy of Music and now works as a full-time professor (piano classes) there.

    The title of the piece comes from a third-grade exercise in Ukrainian language that was given as homework for my nine-year-old son Lev. He had to come up with sentences using a verb "unite". I liked what he had done, so I tried to transform it in music.

  • Lucy's Dance

    James Bohn

    James Bohn grew up in a wooded area in Wisconsin. He has had many friends over the years. The best ones are furry and have four legs. He has wonderful memories of Snowball, Bandit, Dickens, Mickey, Molly, Al, and Zooey. His current best friends are Marty and Lucy.

    Lucy is the composer’s best friend. Lucy is a cat. [Lucy is very foofy.]

  • Checkers

    Utsyo Chakraborty

    Utsyo Chakraborty (b.2001) is an Indian composer and aspiring statistician. He holds an Associate's degree in piano performance from the Trinity College of London. His acoustic and electronic music has been performed by various artists in India, USA, South Korea, England and Wales.

    Ever since I purchased a toy piano as a gift for my one year old niece I have been fascinated by the instrument, especially by the dainty sonority it so effortlessly produces. This one minute piece, quite uncharacteristic of my music, has a steady and easily construed rhythmic structure.

  • Prologomenon and Mimesis

    Jim Dalton

    
 Jim Dalton is a professor of music theory at Boston Conservatory at Berklee, a composer, and a performer. He delights in puns, surrealism, and finding the absurd in everyday life. Consequently, he is never bored.

    I can be a bit of a contrarian at times; in this case writing for the unassuming toy piano in a grandiose manner reflective of Bach’s Toccata and Fugue. As befits my inclination, I have chosen the most pretentious sounding title I could devise.

  • I would have loved to play the C4 too, but the piano key was broken…!

    Enrico Francioni

    Enrico Francioni is a composer and performer. He is active in electroacoustic and instrumental music. As a double bass player he is attracted to contemporary production. He is the founder of the "Fernando Grillo Project" for the recovery and enhancement of the Italian musician.

    The idea of the piece arose from the fact that you cannot use the note C4, as it is actually damaged. Despite this, we want to convey simplicity and a little expression at the same time.

  • Nursery Mischief

    Pat Hanchet

    Pat has eclectic musical tastes. As well as composing, she plays mostly strings, but used to play, research and help to manufacture replicas of early wind instruments. She is also part of a local contemporary music organisation.

    A toy piano is not what it seems. These nursery songs are also not quite what they seem; they avoid dissonance in a pseudo-innocent way, but are nevertheless somewhat 'creepy', using polytonality to disorientate our preconceptions. Old MacDonald provides some kind of resolution with a more dissonant condensed mashup.

  • Schroeder's Limits

    Michael Kimber

    Michael Kimber, violist and award-winning composer-in-residence for Red Cedar Chamber Music, has performed with ensembles as musically diverse as the Kronos Quartet, the Atlanta Virtuosi, and the Oread Baroque Ensemble. His music has been performed in international festivals. Eminent Polish violist Marcin Murawski has recorded seven CDs of his music.

    Charles Schultz’s Peanuts character Schroeder sits on the floor intently playing his miniature piano. In "Schroeder’s Limits" Michael Kimber explores, humorously, limitations of a three-octave range and 60-second timespan, interrupting fragments of Beethoven’s "Für Elise" with attempts at more ambitious repertoire—concertos by Mozart, Brahms, and Grieg.

  • wandering withal

    Crow Alexander Mist

    Alex Mist is a 21-year old composer, singer, mandolinist and tenor-banjoist. They are currently in their senior year studying composition at UCCS. They like to explore many different compositional schools of thought, and their past works include many varying pieces, works, and songs alike.

    "wandering withal" was written as a short lullaby for toy piano. The timbre of the toy piano was specifically chosen to evoke a dreamlike quality, the metal rods acting like tines in a music box. The lilting melodies and arpeggios embody a sense of caution, curiosity and exploration.

  • The Harmonious Toymaker

    Jim Peden

    I am an enthusiastic amateur composer with a long history in and around the music world. I have played classical, pop and jazz in various bands and was the owner of a well-known recording studio. I've operated (part-time) an online music website since 2000.

    This parvum opus is a response to Dr. David Bohn's call for toy piano pieces, 15 minutes of fame (toy piano) in 2021. The title comes with apologies to G. F. Handel!

  • Emma's doodle

    Aurelio Scotto

    Aurelio Scotto - Italian pianist and composer born in 1983. His music is played in Europe, USA, Russia, Japan and published by Universal Edition Wien, Ricordi, Da Vinci Publishing. He won recently the "Gaetano Amadeo Prize".

    The drawings made by my three-year-old daughter, with a lot of imagination and inexperienced hand, inspired this short and fun musical doodle. Polytonality and polymodality give the idea of the distortion of reality filtered by the childish creative world.

  • Butterflies

    Ann Somerville-Charles

    I am a composer whose work is influenced by the experience of growing up in Australia and by the emotional connection I have with the country of my birth, England. My creativity is inspired by personal memories and the natural world. Most of my composing is done at the piano.

    My composition is inspired by the ephemeral beauty of Monarch butterflies. On several occasions, I have had the privilege of observing these butterflies as they emerge from the chrysalis. It is a visual delight to see the radiant colours of their wings as they unfold in preparation for first flight.

  • Metallurgy IV ('Tinkerbell')

    Tim Tricker

    Tim Tricker is a composer from Aberdeen, Scotland. His piece Ninian’s Lilt premiered in the Czech Republic in 2008. Recently he was one of the finalists in the BBC Radio 3 Carol Competition 2020, where his ‘Ring Out Ye Bells’ setting was recorded by the BBC Singers.

    Metallurgy IV (‘Tinkerbell’) is a miniature piece for toy piano. Rendered with minimalistic principles in mind, an insistent repeating figure is established and continued in the left hand, whilst right hand material based on two falling semitones gradually complexifies around it.

  • Childlikeness

    Jean-Pierre Vial

    Jean-Pierre Vial, born in 1946 near Paris, France, is a former software designer. At an early age, he learned the piano, the organ, and composed several pieces for both instruments. Over the last decade, various soloists, small ensembles, or orchestras have performed his music worldwide.

    "This easy piano piece borrows themes from Alexander Scriabin and Erik Satie. Whereas Scriabin's piano compositions are reserved for advanced pianists, many (toy) piano beginners can play Satie's compositions. Childlikeness is so easy that it only requires the white keys of the piano keyboard."

  • Bagatelle

    Anna Vriend

    Anna Vriend won the third prize in the VIII International Composition Competition Opus Ignotum (Czech Republic) with “Což ten slavíček”, a work for women’s choir and obligato flute. Both her works “Icebreaker” and “Intrada & Bourrée”, for bass clarinet solo and reed quintet respectively, have recently been published by Alea Publishing.

    This one-minute piece was composed specifically for Fifteen-Minutes-of-Fame and performer David Bohn. It is inspired by historic performance practices on early keyboard instruments and includes folkloristic rhythmical elements. The range of this piece is limited to the toy piano’s three octaves and presents the instrument in a new perspective.

  • Bluebird

    Xuesi Xu

    Born in Shanghai, China, Xuesi Xu holds a B.M. from Shanghai Conservatory of Music and an M.M from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He is currently a D.M. composition candidate at Florida State University. He enjoys finding interesting sound objects.

    In this short piece, I try to convey simple happiness. When I was writing this piece, I imagined I was a bluebird flying in the sky, so joyous and carefree.