Cage On-Demand | Music of John Cage at EIGHT BRIDGES | Music for Cologne

May 6, 2012 | 8:00pm
Cologne, Germany

To restore silence is the role of objects
-- Samuel Beckett

John Cage's music is often heard through the prism of silence: the idea, introduced in 4'33", that the impossibility of true silence makes us aware of our relationship to our natural acoustic environment. But Cage was also acutely aware of the role that objects play in disrupting a natural acoustic state -- from "preparing" piano strings with nuts and bolts, to introducing competing noise makers from our everyday lives (radios, phonographs), to using electronics instruments to generate new and unfamiliar sounds.

Intrusive and thought-provoking objects and media—from telephones to oscillators to paintings—articulate, interrupt, and mediate the music on this program. In the tradition of Cage, each of these composers creates movement, energy and action from the simple and static “things” that inspire their work.

Program:

John Cage: 3'10" For ICE [arranged by ICE from Cage's 27'10.554" for a Percussionist (1956), 45' for a Speaker (1963), 34'46.776" for a Pianist (1954), 59½" for a String Player (1953)]
George Lewis: Artificial Life 2007, for ensemble (2007)
John Cage: TV-Köln, for piano (1958)
John Cage: Telephones and Birds, for three performers with phones
John Cage: Variations II (1961)
Pauline Oliveros: Double X, for 8 players (1979)
Iannis Xenakis: Dmaathen (1976)
John Cage: Credo in US, for two percussionists, piano, and radio (1942)

 

ICE’s appearance at Eight Bridges is made possible, in part, by Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation through USArtists International in partnership with the National Endowment for the Arts and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

photograph copyright Chad Batka