Aestrid Byrne (†) was a composer and pianist from Galway, Ireland, as well as the lifelong partner of musician Tom Fahy. Byrne recorded from and made her home in Cerro Concepción, Valparaíso, Chile.

Laterna and Duff: Music for Toy Pianos were written and performed from Byrne’s room at Clinica Alemana (German Clinic of Santiago), Santiago, Chile, on 1 November 1998, on a customized Schoenhut. Because her relatively small room at Alemana could not accommodate a baby grand or upright, all recordings were made on a toy piano — it was a tool-of-circumstance, not a tool-of-choice. Byrne died one month later. Read more on Last.fm. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.