The competition was founded after Phyllis fell in love with the instrument. She felt it had tremendous potential to inspire new music to be written for it. Changing themes for each call, the competition has received over 200 submissions altogether from composers all across the US, Canada, Argentina, Russia, Sweden, Finland, Germany, Italy, Israel, Taiwan, Bulgaria, Australia, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, Netherlands, Portugal and Brazil. The toy piano movement has begun!
Scores for the UnCaged Festival will also have a home in the archives at The Toy Piano Collection at Geisel Library (on the campus of the University of California, San Diego). The UCSD Arts Library (located on the lower level, West wing of Geisel Library) has been hosting a toy piano festival each year in early September since 2001. The performers at that festival look forward to browsing through your UnCaged scores!
The Toy Piano Collection at Geisel Library consists of actual instruments, recordings, extant literature and commissioned scores. In 2001, because of the activities at The Toy Piano Collection at Geisel Library and at that Library’s request, the Library of Congress issued a special call number and subject heading for Toy Piano Scores: M 175 T69