Thursday, October 20, 2011

Poles: John Cage 100 – Wolfgang Rihm 60 Their work and its consequences

By presenting the work of John Cage and Wolfgang Rihm as focal points of the festival, MaerzMusik 2012 creates an experimental setting in which two polar positions on musical aesthetics confront one another.

In 2012 we will celebrate John Cage’s 100th birthday and commemorate the 20th anniversary of his death. John Cage was one of the greatest and most influential artists of the 20th century. He conceived an alternate experimental and intermediary concept of music. His groundbreaking works and texts caused a seismic shift in the world of art with manifold consequences. The festival will investigate the impact of Cage on generations of composers and artists that followed. MaerzMusik 2012 will present exemplary works by Cage and by younger composers that he inspired. For example there will be a “Sonic Arts (Re)Union” with Bob Ashley, David Behrman, Alvin Lucier and Gordon Mumma. New works will be created by Elliott Sharp, Werner Dafeldecker, Valerio Tricoli, HP Kuhn and others.

Wolfgang Rihm will be 60 years of age in 2012. While John Cage developed an experimental, de-subjective notion of music, Rihm, by contrast, exemplified a highly expressive, highly personal musical idiom, leaving the post-war avant-garde discourses behind. He equally influenced many young composers. The festival will present one world premiere and a number of German premieres of works by Rihm: music for orchestra, played by SWR Orchestra Freiburg/Baden-Baden, chamber music performed by Remix Ensemble Porto, and choral works, sung by RIAS Kammerchor Berlin.

The complete festival programme will be published in January 2012.

Matthias Osterwold


http://www.berlinerfestspiele.de/en/aktuell/festivals/02_maerzmusik/mm12_info/mm12_info_1.php

Vir2ual Cage an expansive multi-media interpretation of John Cage’s Song Books


We have exciting plans for 2012, the Cage centennial year. Soon we’ll post information about upcoming performances, a symposium or two, and other events. Meanwhile, as we continue developing software to automatically generate renditions of Song Books, it occurs to us that one thing we could use more of is content with which to test it. Besides, with a little over a year left before our anticipated online premier in September 2012, it’s time to issue an official Call for Participation.
We hereby eagerly invite you—musicians, actors, dancers, writers, animators, and other artists (and even non-artists) in various media—to send us your recorded rendition(s) of one or more solos fromSong Books to incorporate into our archive from which performances will be generated and streamed from our web site. Since the archive will be searchable, it also will offer a research or educational tool that will enable, for example, comparing different renditions of the same solo

Not Wanting to Say Anything About Marcel: John Cage Plexigrams


John Cage (1912–1992), the most prominent American experimental composer of the 20th century, also exercised his creativity in making prints and in assembling words as serious graphic/conceptual puzzles in bound form. In 1969, Cage produced his first visual artwork, with Eye Editions, Cincinnati, a series of eight “Plexigrams” with the collective title Not Wanting to Say Anything about Marcel. The title refers to an exchange following the death of Marcel Duchamp, when artists were encouraged to respond in memorial and Jasper Johns said to Cage, in effect, I don't want to say anything.
Each Plexigram is composed of eight printed Plexiglas sheets that stand in parallel groove-slots in a wooden base; the entirety is viewed through the spaced “sandwich.” The Center's collection includes four Plexigrams from the series, all of which will be on view.


  • When:

    Ongoing every day from June 13, 2012 through October 14, 2012. 11:00 AM.
  • Where:

    Cantor Arts Center, just off Palm Drive, at Museum Way and Lomita Drive (Map)
  • Audience:

    Faculty/Staff, Alumni/Friends, General Public, Students, Members
  • Tags:

    International, Exhibition, Arts
  • Contact:

    723-4177
  • Admission:


    Open Wed-Sun 11am - 5pm, Thursdays until 8pm; admission is free. CLOSED MONDAY AND TUESDAY.


    http://m.stanford.edu/events/e/?i=29439

Wednesday, October 5, 2011

John Cage 100th Anniversary Preview Concert


WHERE  |American University Museum at the Katzen Arts Center
4400 Massachusetts Ave NW
Washington, DC 20016
American University Museum
Tickets: $10 general admission, $5 AU students
Emphasizing the intersection of acoustic and visual art characteristic of American composer John Cage’s life, this preview event for the 2012 Cage festival will take place in the American University Museum at the Katzen Arts Center, exploiting its unique acoustic qualities. New York percussionist Ross Karre will play three works from different stages of Cage's career: Cartridge Music/Duet for Cymbal (1960), Pools (1978), and One4 (1990). Each piece will incorporate live audio transformation and spatialization over loudspeakers via software designed and operated by AU faculty member William Brent.


Tuesday, October 4, 2011

THE SIGHT OF SILENCE: John Cage’s Complete Watercolors An Intimate Look into the Mind of one of the Twentieth-Century’s Most Creative Thinkers


The Sight of Silence
Nearly twenty years after his death, John Cage (1912-1992)’s influence is still being felt throughout the worlds of music, performance, and visual art. His groundbreaking ideas and unconventional practice helped lay the foundation for numerous aspects of contemporary art and music. Now, timed to accompany the largest American exhibition of Cage’s visual work since 1993 (National Academy Museum, September 2012), THE SIGHT OF SILENCE by Ray Kass offers the first opportunity to see all 125 signed watercolors that Cage created at the Mountain Lake Workshop in Virginia between 1983 and 1990.

To purchase, please contact:
Emily K. Grandstaff 434.982.2932 / egrandstaff@virginia.edu


The John Cage Centennial Festival Washington, DC


THE FESTIVAL
The John Cage Centennial Festival Washington, DC will be held on and around his birthday, September 5, 2012. It will include art shows, concerts, workshops, recitals, lectures, and panels – all in Washington, DC, September 4 - 10, 2012. Participating institutions include the National Gallery of Art, La Maison Française/Embassy of France, the Phillips Collection, American University, the Kreeger Museum, the Smithsonian Freer Gallery of Art, the University of California, Washington Center, Arena Stage at the Mead Center for American Theater, and the Library of Congress. Cage specialists who will participate include Ray Kass, Mountain Lake Workshop, Cage’s collaborator on his watercolor work, and author ofThe Sight of Silence: The Complete Watercolors of John Cage, and Joan Retallack, Bard College, author ofMusicage: Cage Muses on Words, Art, Music, in relation to Cage’s mesostics, Laura Kuhn, Director of the John Cage Trust, and Brian Brandt, whose Mode Records has embarked on a project to record the complete works of Cage

Performers include the National Gallery of Art new music ensemble with Lina Bahn, Lisa Cella, Alexis Descharmes, William Kalinkos, Ross Karre, and Jaime Oliver, with guest pianist Jenny Lin. Individual concerts will include performances by cellist Descharmes, violinist Irvine Arditti, Allen Otte and Percussion Group Cincinnati, as well as Steven Schick with his red fish blue fish ensemble, and pianists Stephen Drury and Margaret Leng Tan. The technical team includes Ross Karre, Jaime Oliver, and William Brent. 

Thursday, September 22, 2011

A Celebration of John Cage - Toronto

Soundstreams gives an early kick start to the celebrations for the 100th birthday of American composer John Cage at the Gardiner Museum during ScotiaBank's Nuit Blanche, with a fantastic night of music, dance, readings, visual art, and more!



Saturday, October 1 at 7:00pm - October 2 at 7:00am
The Gardiner Museum

Tuesday, September 20, 2011

A Year from Monday. 365 Days Cage at Akademie der Künste, Berlin





On the occasion of John Cage’s 100th birthday in 2012, the Akademie der Künste (Academy of Arts) in Berlin honors the innovative composer with an interdisciplinary art project. A Year from Monday. 365 Days Cage presents artistic comments on Cage that start on Cage’s 99th birthday (5.9.2011) and end on his 100th birthday in 2012. Artists, writers, filmmakers, choreographers, musicians and composers, including many members of the Academy of Arts are devoting themselves to the work of John Cage.
A Year from Monday. 365 Days Cage at Akademie der Künste, Berlin. Opening reception, September 6, 2011. Video by Astrid Gleichmann.

FOUR WALLS (1944) by John Cage, MARGARET LENG TAN (piano, voice)


As part of the series curated by Mode Records at The Stone this September:

MARGARET LENG TAN (piano, voice)
FOUR WALLS (1944) by John Cage
 An hour-long exploration of the disturbed mind. A rare opportunity to hear Cage’s uncanny antecedent to Minimalism and harbinger of 4’33”.

Sunday, September 25
8 pm
The Stone
corner of Avenue C and 2nd Street
New York City
$10 (no reservations)
http://www.thestonenyc.com <http://www.thestonenyc.com/

Wednesday, September 14, 2011

John Cage Memorial Random Composer Award

The John Cage Memorial Random Composer Award was inaugurated in 2011 in commemoration of John Cage's 99th birthday.  The JCMRCA will be awarded to a single composer each year, whose biography and music will appear on their web page for one year.

ALL composers are encouraged to enter - ALL those who frame, manipulate, capture, appreciate, organize, and hear sounds as music.  It is the intention of this competition to recognize a composer of any age, gender, race, nationality, sexuality, style, influence, education or creed.  However, it must be a real person. Donald Duck may not win this competition.  If the winner is found to be sufficiently inhuman, a second winner will be selected.

One composer will be selected from the entries using Random.org's true random numbers culled from atmospheric noise. No email addresses or information entered in the competition will be shared with any individuals or corporations.  There is no financial gain to either the competition or the entrants.  The winner will be asked to provide sound clips of their work for the website, which will be displayed for a year until the next competition.


http://randomcomposeraward.weebly.com/

Every Day is a Good Day - Hayward Gallery

Excellent exhibition of visual works  by John Cage on display at the Hayward Gallery.

http://ticketing.southbankcentre.co.uk/find/hayward-gallery-and-visual-arts/modern-classical/tickets/john-cage-every-day-is-a-good-day-1000158

Ear to Earth Soundscape Field Recording workshop - 100 x John


Ear to the Earth invites you to participate in one of our free New York Soundscape field recording workshops. For two days, participants will learn about listening to their environment, identifying soundmarks, and the art of field recording. Workshop participants will then experience field recording first hand as they mine their soundscape for unique sounds and record them for themselves.
The recordings gathered during the Brooklyn workshop will be featured during a special performance of Share, a collaborative performance environment at Issue Project Room. Recordings gathered during the Staten Island workshop will be woven into a performance at Snug Harbor by contemporary pianist Joe Kubera,  as part of the Ear to the Earth Festival.
Recordings from both workshops will be further used as part of a final work featuring sounds from all boroughs, called 100 x John. In honor of John Cage’s 100th birthday, this piece will be modeled on his unique compositional techniques—using indeterminacy and New York sounds to create a true New York Soundscape.

The 99th anniversary of John Cage’s birthday celebration - Lubin, Poland

To celebrate the 99th anniversary of John Cage’s birthday on September 5, an event called „re:Broadcast“ will take place in Lublin at Litewski Square. The broadcast by Polish Radio 2 of John Cage’s piece „Aria (Fontana Mix)“ will be „re-broadcast“ into the city’s main public space via radio receivers brought by Lublin’s residents.


http://kultura.lublin.eu/wiadomosci,1,7365,The_99th_anniversary_of_John_Cage%E2%80%99s_birthday.html?locale=en_GB&full=1

Monday, September 5, 2011

John Cage's Circle of Influence, October 7-9th, Black Mountain College

JohnCageinJapan

John Cage, foraging for mushrooms in Stony Point, New York (1958)
Photographer: Unknown
Courtesy John Cage Trust

John Cage in Japan (1962)
Photographer: Unknown
Courtesy: John Cage Trust



Details have been posted on the Black Mountain College annual Reviewing Black Mountain College conference, this year focusing on John Cage with the title "John Cage's Circle of Influence"

I wish I could attend, but I am on fellowship, which means lots of time and little money.

http://www.blackmountaincollege.org/index.php/bmc-conference/192-bmc-conference-2011-press-release