This Work generically entitled "Toy Portugal" actually comprises two Toy Piano suites: "Portuguese suite" (2011) and "Portuguese Scenes" (2013). Toy Portugal is a soundtrack of my past. All these pieces are highly evocative and programatic and they are associated with sounds, places, people and memories of my childhood. In a certain way I'm re-living my own history through the lenses of a toy piano and creating my own folklore. This set of pieces was a very personal project that lasted from 2010 to the end of 2013 and it was all conceived by myself. I composed all the pieces and arrangements, I performed, mixed and mastered all of them. I also conceived the cover image. There is a recorded CD with all the musics available plus some bonus tracks. Toy Portugal is a set of works mostly for Toy Piano Solo. The concept was to create a small set of pieces with a common line: they should all reflect the traditional music from Portugal. Melodies and rhythms linked to the imaginary clichés of Portuguese folklore, fados, marchas, vira. The challenge was bigger because the Toy Piano is a somewhat fragile and very limited instrument. The most widespread version is only two octaves long, so this was a main concern. All of the pieces should fit within this range. To take optimal benefit of this range C3-C5, most of the pieces are written in C minor, with few exceptions. I hope I have achieved a very enjoyable repertoire, suited for the international market and all levels (simple to intermediate), with an "exotic and ethnic" flavor and at the same time amusing and fun to play. And I hope to have contributed to raise the level of the repertoire and to help people to regard this instrument as a more serious and genuine one, as it fully deserves. The pieces may be played and considered as a whole package, or can be played freely, as they are all independent from one another.
About the Author: Tiago Videira is a Creative Mind within the areas of music and literature. He is an academic in the area of Digital Media, specialization in Audiovisual and Interactive Content Creation. He has a Masters in Philosophy - Aesthetics (FCSH, "The Cybernetic Artist: the Status of the Artificial Intelligence in Nowadays Music - Two Case Studies: The Lexikon Sonate and the EMI") and degree in Musicology (FCSH). Tiago composed dozens of musical works ranging from film and animation music to simple solo piano pieces, electroacoustic-ambient works for small ensembles, pop and intervention songs, marches or fados. He previously published the albums and songbooks "I speak through my Piano" and "Dances and Dreams". Tiago is also a fiction writer, having earned the Prize "Young Writers 2006" with the work "Galactic Tales", which was later published. He also took classes with Prof. Alberto Pimenta and dozens of creative texts have been created since then. He collaborated with DN Jovem since 2005 until the extinction of the literary supplement. He also published two other fiction books. As an educator, he was a music teacher in basic schools teaching 5th-8th graders. Tiago was also editorial assistant of the online journal Inside between 2005-2008 and wrote several articles within the areas of music and sports. Additionally, Tiago Videira took part in many workshops and Summer Schools and developed work with names like Prof. Bruce Pennycook (University of Austin), Tomás Henriques or Jaime Reis in the domains of Interactive, Film and Electroacoustic music. He has also been developing his composition skills gradually with the help of Eurico Carrapatoso, Pedro Faria Gomes, Pedro Duarte and Michael Mikulka. Research interests Generative and Interactive Music, Aesthetics of Music, Popular Music, Composition, Performance studies, New Media, Multimedia Arts, Portuguese Music and culture. Further interests & hobbies Music - Computer Science - Literature - European Soccer - Internet -Card Games Independent Cinema - Sitcoms - Gastronomy - Photography