CHRIS HEENAN & JONAS KOCHER (accordian) BHOB RAINEY (solo electronics) ABOUT THE EVENT Bowerbird commences the fall season with a concert featuring first rate music from local and distant sources. This is a rare chance to see the duo of Berlin-based American contrabass clarinetist Chris Heenan and Swiss accordianist Jonas Kocher (who are in…
An industrious and inventive mind, Cage explored new ways to notate music including graphs, transparencies, text, and even start charts. When combined with his use of chance and an ear for the unusual these innovations fueled new frontiers in performance practice and the development of bold new sounds. This evening two young virtuosos, recent Pew…
Virtuoso pianist Margaret Leng Tan, who began her association with Cage in 1981, performs an eclectic and far ranging program of Cage’s music for piano, prepared piano, and toy piano to live projected videos.Compositions include Works of Calder, Music for Marcel Duchamp, Cage’s score painting Chess Pieces, and Music for Piano no. 2, which will…
Pianist Margaret Leng Tan returns for a performance of one of John Cages most important works, Sonatas and Interludes. Rhythmic and driving, Sonatas and Interludes is a collection of twenty pieces - sixteen sonatas and four more freely structured interludes - composed for prepared piano, a Cagean innovation that uses screws, bolts, pieces of rubber…
Composed in 1951, Music of Changes was Cages first instrumental composition entirely derived from chance procedures. Cage applied a book of the I Ching, a recent gift from a young Christian Wolff, to various parameters in the music: tempi, dynamics, sounds and silences, durations and superimpositions. The resulting music is one of pointed extremes and…
Cage often referred to his silent piece as his most important work, but does this piece overshadow his other artistic contributions, and most importantly, his craft as a composer? A series of talks and artistic responses explore the complex and interwoven ideas of 433 (1952) and beyond. Part of the Cage: Beyond Silence festival. http://cagebeyondsilence.com/
One of the ideas central to Cages philosophy was asking us to consider the way we listen to and perceive music. Monumental in its duration, this performance of Cages Organ2 / ASLSP challenges the traditional parameters of a concert and asks us to choose our own path to engage with the music. Presented by organist…
Taking advantage of the unique character of each instrument, members of Philadelphias venerable Network for New Music perform solos from Cage's Concert for Piano and Orchestra (1958 - 59), offering a broad sampling instrumental timbres and compositional styles. These works will be performed in tandem with the choreographed movements of the Merce Cunningham dancers on…
Utilizing modular synthesizer, computer, drum kit and motorized percussive objects Vida and Keszler play an ecstatic form of electro-acoustic music. Ben Vida is a Brooklyn based composer, improviser and sound artist. He produces compositions that use analog and digital synthesizing technologies and focus on aural phenomena and sound localization. Ben has released over twenty records…
JOHN CAGE'S SONG BOOKS performed by Ne(x)tworks Ne(x)tworks Joan La Barbara - voice Shelley Burgon - harp Yves Dharamraj - cello Miguel Frasconi - glass Stephen Gosling - piano; Ariana Kim - violin Christopher McIntyre - trombone, laptop As with many of Cage's works, Song Books is indeterminate with regard to performance. In order to…
As with many of Cage's works, Song Books is indeterminate with regard to performance. In order to highlight the immense and open possibilities of the score, Cage: Beyond Silence offers audiences a rare opportunity to experience multiple versions of this work, further inviting audiences to engage with the ephemeral qualities of music so important to…
Talks, Workshops, and Hands-On Activities. Unpack Song Books with our expert guides. This beautiful score includes over 90 solos exploring a wide range of notational systems, including pictures, maps, and text. Participate in workshops and talks with Joan La Barbara, Richard Kostelanetz, and David Patterson
ABOUT THE EVENT Pushing the boundaries of instrumental performance techniques and electro-acoustic sound production, the New England-based seven-member ensemble The BSC offers a bold interpretation of Cage’s Song Books. Ripe with texts by Thoreau, Satie, Duchamp, Buckminster Fuller and Merce Cunningham, this performance will fill the beautiful acoustic space of the Philadelphia Episcopal Cathedral, inviting…
As with many of Cage's works, Song Books is indeterminate with regard to performance. In order to highlight the immense and open possibilities of the score, Cage: Beyond Silence offers audiences a rare opportunity to experience multiple versions of this work, further inviting audiences to engage with the ephemeral qualities of music so important to…
• Variations I (1958) performed by Christopher Colucci and Jorge Cousineau • Variations II (1961) performed by Nate Wooley and Susan Alcorn • Variations III (1962) performed by Bonnie Jones and Jesse Kudler With vastly open and indeterminate scores and happenings, Variations I – VIII (1958 – 1967) is a series of compositions that foreshadows…
Pianist Margaret Leng Tan returns for a performance of one of John Cage’s most important works, Sonatas and Interludes (1946 – 48). Percussive and rhythmic, Sonatas and Interludes is a collection of twenty pieces - sixteen sonatas and four more freely structured interludes - composed for prepared piano, a Cagean innovation that uses screws, bolts,…
Relache, longtime champions of Cages music in Philadelphia, present an interactive and multimedia evening including Hymnkus (co-commissioned by Relache in 1986), Lecture on the Weather, the vocal work Litany for the Whale, and a brand new arrangement of Apartment House 1776, a worked based on early American fuguing tunes.
Created the year he died, Cages only feature-length film One11 (1992) was composed entirely using 1,200 random operations devised by a computereach determining the movements of a crane-mounted camera and the qualities of lighting within an empty room. A meditation on the perception of emptiness that harks back to Cages much earlier 433 (1952), One11…