Margaret Leng Tan plays Somei Satoh - Litania (New Albion Records, 1986)

Somei Satoh, born 1947 in Sendai, Japan, began his career in 1969 as a member of an experimental, mixed media group called Tone Field. In the early '70s, he established a multimedia arts festival known as Global Vision. He has written over thirty compositions including works for traditional Japanese instruments, solo instruments, orchestra, chamber ensembles, electronic instruments  and theater ensembles. Taken from the back cover-

         Somei Satoh is a composer of the post-war generation whose hauntingly evocative musical language is a curious fusion of Japanese timbral sensibilities with nineteenth century romanticism and electronic technology. He has been deeply influenced by Shintoism, the writings of the Zen Buddhist scholar D.T. Suzuki, his Japanese cultural heritage as well as the multi-media art forms of the sixties. Satoh's elegant and passionate style convincingly integrates these diverse elements into an inimitably individual approach to contemporary Japanese music.

Margaret Leng Tan, born 1945 in Singapore, is a classical musician best known as a concert toy pianist. She also performs classical pieces with other unconventional instruments including toy drums, tin cans and soy sauce dishes. She met John Cage in 1981 and worked along side him during the last eleven years of his life. On Litania, she plays piano, and on two of the pieces, it is processed through tape delay. Also performing on the album is the late composer Michael Pugliese, vocalist Lise Messier, and violinist Frank Almond. Download Litania here.