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SORCERESS OF THE NEW PIANO
The Artistry of Margaret Leng Tan

(dir. Evans Chan, USA / Hong Kong / Singapore, 92 mins)

Sat Sept 23 6pm - buy tix
Margaret Leng Tan in person, with musical performance!

Sun Sept 24 6pm - buy tix
Margaret Leng Tan in person, with musical performance!

"I loved SORCERESS OF THE NEW PIANO ! Margaret Leng Tan is one of those rare, nay unique, artists whose passion and creative awareness help her audience discover and appreciate the most intriguing, underknown 20th century music in Evans Chan's mesmerizing documentary."
- Michael Nyman, composer

"Pianist Margaret Leng Tan has been fighting the good fight for avant-garde music for a quarter century -- a 'sorceress' indeed -- and now she is the subject of one of the best films ever made about a musician. Evans Chan explores Tan's work in the same manner that she explores a piano -- from the inside out.  SORCERESS OF THE NEW PIANO is not only an exciting work of art in itself, but one of the very few films that manage to communicate some real and substantial information about the art of music."
- Tim Page, THE WASHINGTON POST

"This film is full of surprises: from the riveting opening performance of George Crumb's Makrokosmos, to Leng Tan's duo with singer Joan La Barbara - played without using any of the piano's keys!  To see this slightly-built woman transformed into a pounding, elemental force of nature behind the piano is one of contemporary music's great treats.  To see how she brings that same intensity and musicality to the toy piano is another. Evans Chan has captured both in this charming, very human film."
- John Schaefer, host of New Sounds, WNYC/National Public Radio  

"Equally fascinating for avant-garde music buffs and those with no knowledge of the genre, Chan¹s film enables us to hear (and see) music where we least expect it."
- Portland Reel Music Festival

Strumming the strings of the piano like a harp and performing Beethoven and the Beatles on toy piano are among the surprising scenes in Evans Chan's documentary, Sorceress of the New Piano, which celebrates the trans-cultural career of Singapore-born, New York-based pianist Margaret Leng Tan, hailed by The New Yorker as "the diva of avant-garde pianism." The film traces Tan's quest for a new pianistic language, as she performs ground-breaking works by American masters Henry Cowell, George Crumb, and her longtime mentor John Cage, as well as by maverick composers of the next generation -- Philip Glass, Tan Dun, Somei Satoh, Ge Gan-ru, Toby Twining, Lois V Vierk, Raphael Mostel, and Stephen Montague. Critics Edward Rothstein (The New York Times), Mark Swed (Los Angeles Times), and Joshua Kosman (San Francisco Chronicle) share their thoughts on Tan's artistry and musical lineage. Incorporating vintage footage of Merce Cunningham's dance, Jasper Johns' art, and a Marcel Duchamp film, Sorceress also highlights Tan's latest transformation as the world's first professional toy pianist, turning a humble toy into an instrument worthy of the international concert stage. A decade in the making, Chan's documentary surveys an important chapter of twentieth century avant-garde music through the sonic odyssey of a unique artist who illuminates the confluence of East and West, Asia and America.