John Cage Trust

On the Score of 4'33" (Original Version in Proportional Notation)

2012-01-28T18:56:00.034-05:00

This is a talk* given by Irwin Kremen on the program 4'33" and Other Sounds Not Intended: A Tribute to John Cage at Central Park Summerstage, July 15, 1994, New York.

__________________

Good evening, everybody. My task is to tell you something about this score (Edition Peters, No. 6777a) of 4'33", the one John prepared in proportional notation that isn't discernible from any performance of the piece itself.

You can imagine how amazed I was 41 years ago when John Cage handed me the original manuscript of this score and wished me "Happy Birthday." I didn't have the presence of mind to ask David Tudor, who also was at that party and who had performed the "silent" piece at a concert the summer before, to do it again that night for us. Nor can I claim to have grasped the full import and the special innovativeness of this particular score in proportional notation. At that time, I understood that the silence of this "silent" piece was more of an idea than a possibility, because one can't ever get a noiseless situation, a soundless silence, and not certainly in the presence of an audience. Even in a soundproof chamber a person may still hear something -- the heart beating or the ears ringing or the gut rumbling -- so that silence is, if anything, soundful. A performance of 4'33" is far from empty acoustically. It must yield a flow of sound if one but listens. And this, by dint of chance, will differ widely from performance to performance.

That seemed to me to be Cageian music at its ideal, neither intentionally composed nor rushing climactically to ends and goals, but sounds just happening in and of themselves, each having its own value, free of hierarchy -- in short, a democracy of sound.

This much was apparent to me back in the '50s. But what I failed to grasp then and realized only later, was the radicalness of the score that John had presented me and what I now consider to be its larger significance. I have in mind Cage's simple and elegant treatment of time in this score. It departs significantly from traditional practice. So far as I know, nothing like it had been done before.

Everyone here has some idea as to what a page of conventional music looks like. In it, timing will be given by the different kinds of notes, the time signature, the designated measures, and the words that roughly cue tempi. Taken together, these devices can represent relative duration, not exact duration. This score of 4'33" does away with all of that by setting time equal to space -- not the broken space of notes on staves -- to a given amount of time. John did this with a calibrating instruction on the otherwise blank first page of the score proper; and this space-by-time instruction, as shown below, reads:

"1 page = 7 inches = 56 seconds."

Musical time is thereby rendered specific and exact. The First Movement, as shown below,

illustrates how this is applied. The First Movement consists of the space between those two vertical lines. On the actual score, that space is 3 3/4 inches wide and thus equals exactly 30 seconds, the number cited at the bottom of the second vertical line. It's simplicity itself.

What I've shown you amounts, then, to a major change. In this score, John made exact, rather than relative, duration, the only musical characteristic. In effect, real time is here the fundamental dimension of music, its very ground. And where time is primary, change, process itself, defines the nature of things. That aptly describes the silent piece -- an unfixed flux of sound through time, a flux from performance to performance.

Another aspect of this First Movement worth noting is its almost total blankness, which characterizes the two remaining movements as well. This blankness, while it appears to be nothing, is yet something: it blots out previous practice. Gone are the staves and all that was borne upon them -- keys, quarter and half notes, even measures -- as John situates music anew in the flux of sound that is time itself. New musical notations are free to follow wherever imagination leads.

___________

The last time I spoke with John about this score -- it was in Zurich in 1991 -- his face lit up with his inimitable smile, and he said, "Krem, all the notes are there." I took that to mean in a virtual sense, for how otherwise could they be there when patently they weren't! Thus, at any performance of 4'33", as virtual notes they would underscore in effect whatever chance yields up by way of sound. Conceived as such, it's not unlike the virtual image of physical optics: in the microscope and telescope, virtual images and foci are held to occur at ideal points where no tangible part of the instrument is located.

You now have my view of the score that John gave me.

Laura Kuhn

Things Not Seen Before: A Tribute to John Cage

2012-01-11T09:44:00.011-05:00

Things Not Seen Before: A Tribute to John Cage, curated by Jade Dellinger. Tempus Projects: Saturday, Jan. 14 (opening reception) - Sunday, Feb. 5, 2012.

I am not interested in the names of movements but rather in seeing and making things not seen before.

-- John Cage

This latest exhibition by Tampa's own Jade Dellinger premieres several vintage original artworks by John Cage, including a Strings (1979) monotype, unique trial proof lithographs from his Mushroom Book (1972; in collaboration with Lois Long), and select mesostic pages from his Empty Words (1974).

Site-specific artworks by prominent local artists Joe Griffith and Theo Wujcik will also be included, along with Cage-related or -inspired video, sculptural objects, drawings, and scores by such Fluxus pioneers as Nam June Paik, Philip Corner, Giuseppe Chiari, and Milan Knizak. Numerous other Cage friends, collaborators, and acquaintances will also be variously represented, including Laurie Anderson, David Byrne, The Art Guys, Christina Kubisch, Stephen Vitiello, Andrew Deutsch, Keith Edmier, Emil Schult (Kraftwerk), Roberta Friedman, Lee Ranaldo (Sonic Youth), and Christian Marclay.

As Dellinger describes it, the hang will be as unusual as what is hung:

The art works will be positioned on the gallery walls by utilizing John Cage's own (rather unorthodox) chance operations-based installation method, and, as several of the works on paper serve a dual-function as 'graphic scores,' there remains the potential for musical interpretation of the artworks on exhibit....As his own practice made abundantly clear, I believe John Cage would have appreciated our modest tribute and this potential for 'things not heard before' too.

Jade Dellinger* is an interesting fellow. He describes himself as an independent curator, but he collaborates most regularly these days with the Contemporary Art Museum at the University of South Florida and the Tampa Museum of Art. In fact, running somewhat concurrently with his Things Not Seen Before: A Tribute to John Cage at Tempus Projects is yet another noteworthy exhibition, this one at the Tampa Museum of Art, entitled John Cage's 33 1/3 - Performed by Audience. For this rare performance of 1969 Cage's participatory installation piece (scored for audience of participants, 12 turntables, 12 stereo amplifiers, 12 pairs of speakers, and any 300 records), Dellinger invited various artists to provide their "Top 10" LP lists for inclusion. Early on, Pauline Oliveros, Yoko Ono, Richie Ramone, and Irwin Chusid submitted lists. Oliveros's included the likes of Tony Bennett, Willie Nelson, and Glenn Gould, while Ono's enumerated only Ono, John Lennon, Lennon/Ono, and Sean Ono Lennon. Ramone's list included Peggy Lee, David Bowie, and the soundtrack from Saturday Night Fever, while Irwin Chusid's sported Jandek (anything by), Harry Partch, Nelson Riddle, and the Sex Pistols. Other guest curators for this exhibition, which runs January 28 through May 6, 2012, include David Byrne, Iggy Pop, John Baldessari, and Jim Rosenquist.

Should be fun, no?

Dellinger is also a discerning collector. His most recent acquisition is a pair of "Artist Conks," which is what mycologically savvy folks have nicknamed the common tree bracket fungus otherwise known as the Ganoderma applanatum. The moniker is apt, because one of the properties of this particular fungus is that its pore surface accepts and preserves whatever is etched into the surface.

As you can see, Dellinger's artifacts have tremendous historical significance, being signed and dated by original members of the New York Mycological Society, which, as most know, Cage co-founded with Guy Nearing and others in 1962. The one dated Memorial Day 1962 is from their inaugural mycological jaunt and is signed by each of the founding members, including Cage, Lois Long, Dick & Allison Higgins, and Nearing.

Talk about longevity, no?

The other is headed "Londonderry, Vermont", and memorializes what was for many years the favored location of the NYMS's annual Chanterelle Weekend. Thanks to Paul Sadowski for this invaluable information, by the way. Paul is a long-time member and now Secretary of the New York Mycological Society (and, incidentally, for nearly 20 years John Cage's stalwart music copyist/engraver). Paul has kindly provided access to the 2007 Winter issue of the NYMS Newsletter here, which includes Cage's marvelous 1964 letter to the NYMS members-at-large concerning what was apparently organizational strife at the time.

The back story on this is kind of sweet. These Artist Conks were in the private collection of a musician who lives in New Jersey. He was raising money to fund a record he was producing and had listed them for auction on an online site. Dellinger saw them, surmised their historic value, and quickly offered him more than his reserve to secure them in advance. Dellinger said that the musician seemed pleased that his mushrooms would be included in exhibitions and shared with a larger public. He'd had them stored away in a closet for years and didn't realize their import -- only

that they were old, unusual, and apparently in Cage's hand.

These Artist Conks fall into the never-too-old-to-learn-new-things category for me. Sharing them with my assistant, who in turn shared them with her parents, Robert and Katherine Martin (he, incidentally, the Director of the Conservatory of Music here at Bard College), we were both astonished to learn that she had some in her family as well!

This little guy (left) was etched by Bob into a mushroom he'd found during a trip with Catherine in 1964 to Richmond, New Hampshire, where her parents lived. It was a courtship gesture, as he recalls, and it sports the first few notes of the Prelude of the Second Suite for Unaccompanied Cello by J.S. Bach, which he was studying at the time.

*Dellinger has other claims to fame. He has co-authored several interesting books, including Are We Not Men? We Are Devo! (2003), and he's the great grandson of Edd J. Rousch (1893-1988), a major league baseball player (mostly center field) who was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1962. Rousch finished his 18-year career with a .323 lifetime average, 268 stolen basses, and 182 triples. Further, he never struck out more than 25 times in a season, and he had 30 inside-the-park home runs.

Laura Kuhn

Mondays with Merce (Episode 015)

2011-10-22T08:03:00.016-04:00

Mondays with Merce (Episode 015) - The Prepared Mind: John Cage and David Tudor

These programs -- the glorious work of Nancy Dalva and the Cunningham Dance Foundation -- are always a joy, but this one particularly so for its inclusion of new archival film and photography of John Cage and David Tudor. Recent interviews with Christian Wolff and Gordon Mumma provide a beautiful, authoritative backbone, and highlights include a rare clip of Cage performing his infamous 4'33" in Harvard Square (1983) as well as new footage of Cunningham's RainForest (1968, with Tudor's eponymous score), filmed by Mondays with Merce at Moscow's Mossovet Theater in June 2011 under the auspices of the U.S. Department of State and the Chekhov Festival.

Laura Kuhn

Any Resemblance is Purely Coincidental?

2011-10-05T09:01:00.011-04:00

The Swedish Chef (The Muppets - Popcorn)

Ring any (Water Walk) bells?

A Memory Sidebar: Discovering yet again that some great idea I had was thought of by John Cage some 50 years before, I once asked Merce Cunningham whether he thought Cage wouldn't always be one step ahead of us. He smiled and asked in reply whether I was asking if John Cage would ever be fully assimilated.

He thought about this for a moment and shook his head no. Not in your lifetime, he said.

Laura Kuhn

Lou Harrison & John Cage at Bard College

2011-09-26T14:43:00.050-04:00

Lou Harrison (1917-2003) and John Cage (1912-1992) will be celebrated this season at Bard College's Fisher Center for the Performing Arts, courtesy of New Albion Records, with concerts on Oct. 15 (Harrison) and Nov. 11 & 12 (Cage). Featured will be two rarely performed works by both: Harrison's La Koro Sutro (1972) and Cage's James Joyce, Marcel Duchamp, Erik Satie: An Alphabet (1982).

La Koro Sutro is one of Harrison's most lavish and optimistic works, scored for 100-voice chorus, American Gamelan, harp, and pump organ. The title reflects the composer's long-time advocacy of the artificial "world language" known as Esperanto, being an Esperanto translation of the 'Heart Sutra,' the essence of the Perfect Wisdom Scriptures belonging to Mahayana Buddhism.

Harrison grew up in the culturally diverse San Francisco Bay Area, where he was exposed to Cantonese opera, Gregorian chant, and the music of both Spanish and Mexican cultures. His music avoids for the most part the traditional trappings of Western functional harmony, substituting with gorgeous melodies, unexpected rhythms, and a flow of unusual tone colors.

With regard to matters of overall style and choice of instruments, in La Koro Sutro as elsewhere, Leta E. Miller sums it up nicely by noting that

"When Lou Harrison couldn't find the sound he imagined within the Western orchestra, he looked elsewhere for inspiration -- to other cultures (Korea, Indonesia, Mexico), other sound sources (flower pots, brake drums, oxygen tanks), or other disciplines (dance, drama, literature). And if he still couldn't find it, he made it. ... He delights in combining disparate styles into untried syntheses; for instance, writing for Chinese instruments tuned in Just Intonation; composing concerti for Western instruments accompanied by Indonesian ensembles; using Esperanto for Buddhist tests; or requiring home made instruments to join the standard symphony orchestra." (from Lou Harrison: Composer a World, with Fredric Lieberman, Oxford University Press, 1998)

Performers for the Harrison program -- which will include his Solo to Anthony Cirone (1972) and Suite for Violin and American Gamelan (a collaboration with Richard Dee, 1973) -- will be the Riverside Choral Society, American Gamelan (William Winant, Ches Smith, Ben Paysen, Shayna Dunkelman), Jacqueline Kerrod, and Krista Bennion Feeney, joined by Bard College Conservatory of Music students, all conducted by Patrick Gardner, long-time director of the Riverside Choral Society.

"New Albion is honored to be a spoke in the wheel of friends, composers, musicians, conductors, labels, publishers, artists, and creative individuals who have been inspired by the deep spirituality and indomitable melodic line Lou offered the world. He is held close to many hearts, a hero in life and art, a courageous iconoclast, a person whose motto was his role on the earth: to cherish, conserve, consider, create." -- Foster and Tricia Reed, New Albion Records

New Albion Records was founded in San Francisco in 1984, dedicated to the exploration of new music. To date its catalog numbers some 138 releases (with many works of Harrison and Cage among them), but in recent years its activity has moved from recordings to concerts. With its relocation to Tivoli in 2007, very near to Bard College, New Albion now greatly enlivens the cultural life of this part of the Hudson Valley. These upcoming performances mark their fourth and fifth events collaborative with and for Bard College's Fisher Center, respectively.

John Cage's James Joyce, Marcel Duchamp, Erik Satie: An Alphabet (1982) began life as a radio on a commission from the composer's long-time friend, Klaus Schoning, and Cologne's WDR. Working on the principles of collage, Cage brings together a cast of 14 unlikely characters, some near and dear to his heart -- the title characters, along with Vocoder, Mao Tse Tung (as a child), Henry David Thoreau, Rrose Selavy, Thorstein Veblen, Buckminster Fuller, Robert Rauschenberg, Jonathan Albert, Oppian, Brigham Young, and a Narrator, orchestrator of them all -- who are made to speak together, their dialogue comprised of literal quotations, freely adapted historical materials, and lines that Cage has simply made up.

What is modern is surely collage, Cage once said, referring both to the art of juxtaposition itself and to the interactivity heard here between the living and the dead. Alphabet demonstrates a remarkably democratic intermingling of perspectives, an unmitigated humor, and an unmistakable irreverence for the particulars of history.

Performers for this production of Alphabet, a re-staging of the John Cage Trust's original theatrical realization seen in venues around the world throughout the 2001-2002 season, include John Kelly (Narrator), Mikel Rouse (James Joyce), who also constructed the multifaceted sound score from Cage's incomplete manuscripts, Joan Retallack (Buckminster Fuller), Richard Teitelbaum (Robert Rauschenberg), Trevor Carlson (Brigham Young), and others. Merce Cunningham and Jasper Johns are heard as aural spectors (on tape) in the roles of Erik Satie and Rrose Selavy, respectively, created for the original production.

Lou Harrison and John Cage were very good friends for a very long time. This is a little-known item held in the archives of the John Cage Trust, framed and hung very near to Laura Kuhn's hideously cluttered desk.

Laura Kuhn

Playing Duchamp

2011-09-26T06:52:00.007-04:00

You, too, can play chess with Marcel Duchamp!

Laura Kuhn

John Cage: On & Off the Air!

2011-09-07T08:27:00.041-04:00

John Cage's interest in radio began in childhood with original broadcasts created on behalf of his Boy Scouts of America troop and culminated, the year before his death, with his Europera 5 (1991), one of three mixed-media works created for the operatic stage. John Cage: On & Off the Air! -- a touring program under development by the John Cage Trust that will premiere at Bard College's Fisher Center for the Performing Arts in Fall 2012-- means to celebrate this engagement with an ever-changing program of works wrapped around a newly-staged revival of Cage's peripatetic The City Wears a Slouch Hat (CBS Radio Workshop, 1942). Based on a play by Kenneth Patchen, this new staging will feature a new film of light and shadows by Mikel Rouse.

Uniquely, the four elements comprising this revival -- music, sound effects, readers/actors, and film -- will be brought together variously from venue to venue, depending on local resources and talent. Other works on the program will include such of Cage's works as Imaginary Landscape No. 1 (1939), Radio Music (1956), Credo in US (1942), Water Music (1952), 27'10.554 for a Percussionist (1956), Water Walk (1959), Speech (1955), and Rocks (1986), among others.

In conjunction with this newly-created program and the staggering number of events in the works worldwide that mean to celebrate John Cage's 2012 Centennial, free103point9 and the John Cage Trust are pleased to announce 120 Hours for John Cage, an open call for proposals involving Cage's compositions with, for, and about radio. Selected proposals will be broadcast on free103point9's FM radio station, WGXC 90.7 FM in upstate New York, and streamed online throughout a month-long program (120 hours!) scheduled for September 2012.

free103point9 is a New York State-based nonprofit arts organization establishing and cultivating the genre of transmission arts by promoting artists and works informed by the intentional use of space -- often the airwaves. Their major programs include the Transmission Art Archive, an in-progress resource featuring artists, works, exhibitions, and events that define the genre and place it in historical context, and WGXC 90.7 FM: Hands-on Radio, a creative community FM radio station serving Greene and Columbia counties in upstate New York.

The proposal categories are as follows:

1. Recordings of a specific Cage radio composition (old or new)

2. Live performances of a specific Cage radio composition (remote or on-site)

3. Original works in homage or inspired by Cage's radio compositions

The submission deadline is March 1, 2012. For more information, please visit free103point9.org. If you're uncertain about the extent of Cage's works for, with, and about radio, or if you'd simply like to discuss possible project proposals, feel free to contact Laura Kuhn, Director of the John Cage Trust.

Key to the liveliness of both WGXC 90.7 FM and free103point9 is Galen Joseph-Hunter, editor of the recently published Transmission Arts: Artists and Airwaves (PAJ Publications, 2011), which features 150 artists notable for their sonic, visual, and live works spanning early radio experiments of the 1880s to the present day. Dealing with performance, composition, installation, broadcast, public works, and interactive network projects, it places transmission arts in historical context and lays the groundwork for the definition of a new art genre.

You can join free103point9, PAJ Publications, and the Electronic Music Foundation in celebrating this important release at the Brooklyn Book Celebration at the Issue Project Room on Oct. 18, 2011, 7 pm. Featured performers will include Todd Merrell, Kabir Carter, Terry Nauheim, Lazaro Valiente, Joel Chadabe, and others. Admission is free!

On Saturday, September 3, Galen Joseph-Hunter and Laura Kuhn engaged in a spirited, hour-long public conversation about the history and current activities of the John Cage Trust, some of the 2012 events in the worldwide pipeline, and their upcoming work together via WGXC 90.7 FM. Have a listen here!

Laura Kuhn

Photo credits: John Cage's Airborne Radio © Emily Martin, John Cage, Listening © James Klosty

Music to Our Ears!

2011-09-06T09:38:00.009-04:00

As everyone knows, percussion was near and dear to John Cage's heart. So, I'm especially proud to announce that Bard College, home to the John Cage Trust, has instituted a brand new percussion program within The Bard College Conservatory of Music. The John Cage Trust Scholarship -- the first of what we hope will be many to come -- was awarded to incoming percussion student, Zihan Yi.

Congratulations, Zihan!

The resident ensemble is none other than So Percussion. Yes, you read it right! Josh Quillen, Jason Treuting, Adam Sliwinski, and Eric Beach (from left to right above) have officially joined the Conservatory's undergraduate-only percussion faculty, along with their stellar, non-resident colleagues Greg Zuber, Daniel Druckman, and Jonathan Haas.

So Percussion is up to so many things so much of the time, it's virtually impossible to properly tout them here. They recently wrapped up their annual So Percussion Summer Institute (SoSI) at Princeton University, where special guests, in addition to Princeton faculty composers Steven Mackey and Paul Lansky, included Matmos, Dan Deacon, guitarist Grey McMurray, and the composer Cenk Ergun (whose website I particularly enjoy).

And I know of at least seven So Percussion concerts in the upcoming season in which Cage's music will be performed: Bard College (Sept. 18), Stanford University (Oct. 26), U.C. Davis (Oct. 29, 30), Boston's Longy School (Feb. 9), Toronto's Royal Conservatory (March 2), the University of Texas at Austin (March 7, 8), and Carnegie's Zankel Hall (March 26). See So Percussion's website for complete details.

This seems a perfect opportunity to also tout Budapest's Amadinda Percussion Group, an ensemble of four Hungarian musicians -- Zoltan Racz, Zoltan Vacz, Aurel Holo, and Karoly Bojtos, all graduates of the Ferenc Liszt Academy of Music -- who came together in 1984 to present masterpieces of percussion music to Hungarian audiences and to stimulate the creation of new works by composers internationally. Considered one of the most original and versatile percussion ensembles in the world, Amadinda Percussion Group has to date produced no less than six compilation CDs featuring nearly* every known John Cage percussion work.

Here's the impressive line-up of recordings, with associated images and audio clips provided courtesy of Amadinda:

Volume 1 (1935-1942): Quartet (1935), Imaginary Landscape No. 1 (1939), Second Construction (1940), Living Room Music (1940), Double Music (Cage-Harrison, 1941)

Volume 2 (1941-1950): Third Construction (1941), Credo in US (1942), Imaginary Landscape No. 3 (1942) , Imaginary Landscape No. 2 (1942), The Wonderful Widow of Eighteen Springs (1942), Amores (1943), She is Asleep (1943), A Flower (1950)

Volume 3 (1991): Four4 (1991)

Volume 4 (1940-1956): 27'10.554" for a Percussionist (1956), Fads and Fancies in the Academy (1940), Four Dances [What so proudly we hail] (1942-43)

Volume 5 (1935-1991): Six (1991), Quartet (1936), One4 (1990), Dance Music for Elfrid Ide (1940) , Three2 (1991)

Volume 6 (1975-1991): Haikai (1986), Child of Tree (1975), Branches (1976), Five4 (1991), cComposed Improvisation (bass guitar; 1987-90), cComposed Improvisation (snare drum; 1987-90), But What About the Noise of Crumpling Paper... (1985)

*While Cage aficionados may argue amongst themselves about what works should be definitively included in such a list, the only composition I'm really referring to here is the John Cage/Kenneth Patchen collaboration, The City Wears a Slouch Hat (1942), available from C.F. Peters as EP 67479. And Cage's ubiquitous 4'33", arguably scored for anything and everything, appears on Amadinda's 1988 CD entitled simply 4'33" (Hungaroton Classic 12991).

Interestingly, neither Cage's Quartet (1935) nor Trio (1935) was conceived with particular instruments in mind. As Cage himself elucidated in a 1988 interview with B. Michael Williams ("The Early Percussion Music of John Cage, 1935-1943," Percussive Notes, August 1993), it was partly due to this that early performances varied so widely. He would ultimately fix his Trio into a work for 3 percussionists, incorporating the third movement "Waltz" in his later Amores (1943), but the Quartet was allowed to (continue to) roam free.

Cage's Imaginary Landscape No. 4 (March No. 1) for 12 radios and ensemble (1951) and Imaginary Landscape No. 5 for 42 LP recordings (1952) pose particular problems. Leaving aside the question of how to best classify LP recordings and radios according to current organological standards, Cage's Imaginary Landscapes as a whole are still not fully settled with regard to chronological orderings, titles, and instrumentations. Cage himself felt compelled early on to clarify them in a letter to his California colleague, Peter Yates, as follows:

"Now for guidelines as you request on postcard. There are 5 Imaginary Landscapes. First is on the Town Hall record. Second, I hope has been lost. It was like the first as far as instrumentation goes but fancy rather than stark. The third is for percussion orchestra and a great deal of machinery and was done at the Museum of Modern Art in 1943. The 4th is for 12 radios and is also entitled March No. 2. The 5th is on tape and is fragments of 43 jazz records spliced together." (December 28, 1959)

But, as U.C. Santa Cruz Professor of Music Leta Miller* has argued, Cage's recollections sometimes serve to further muddy what are sometimes already quite muddy waters. Miller's scholarly emphasis is on mid-20th-century experimental music in the U.S., and two of her articles on John Cage bear noting here: "The Art of Noise," in Perspectives on American Music, 1900-1950, edited by Michael Saffle (Essays in American Music, Vol. 3, Garland Publications, 2000), and "Cultural Intersections: John Cage in Seattle (1938-1940)," in John Cage: Music, Philosophy, and Intention, 1933-1950, edited by David Patterson (Studies in Contemporary Music and Culture, Routledge, 2008).

*While a significant contributor to Cage scholarship, Miller is best known for her extensive writings on Lou Harrison, especially the heralded biography, with Fredric Lieberman, Lou Harrison: Composing a World (New York: Oxford University Press, 1998), which was released in an updated paperback edition in 2004 by the University of Illinois Press.

But, returning to Cage's Imaginary Landscape No. 4 and No. 5, confusion be damned, as both works are happily included in gorgeous new CD and DVD releases from Mode Records featuring the Percussion Group Cincinnati entitled John Cage: Works for Percussion, Vol. 1 (2011). Included on both are not only fine performances of all five of Cage's Imaginary Landscape works, but a very spirited realization of Credo in US as well, a bit of which can be seen and heard here.

All of this is, of course, music to our ears!

Laura Kuhn

John Cage Book of Days 2012

2011-07-04T14:35:00.067-04:00

The John Cage Book of Days 2012 is back from the printer and will soon be on the shelves of a bookstore near you!

This special centennial year edition is devoted entirely to Cage and food, with quotations taken from his "Where Are We Eating? And What Are We Eating?", published in its entirely in Empty Words: Writings '73-'78 (Wesleyan University Press, 1979). The cover was created using fragments of Cage's Edible Drawing No. 1 (1990), made entirely of lemon, sesame seeds, and mushrooms, which literally didn't make it back from a London exhibition in one piece. Cage's introduction to "Where Are We Eating? And What Are We Eating", originally written for James Klosty's beautiful photographic book, Merce Cunningham, is also included, serving as this year's Foreword.

John Cage loved to cook and he loved to eat. At first it was cream, butter, and a good leg of lamb, and then later, after the ravages of age began to take their toll (and on sage advice from Yoko Ono), the more austere ingredients that filled his macrobiotic kitchen shelves. Thumbnails gracing this year's pages are scans of the covers of various of Cage's cookbooks, now collectively housed at the John Cage Trust, which tell a story unto themselves...

And, as usual, also included are important historic dates -- first performances, special events and appearances, births and deaths -- highlighting pages throughout.

The John Cage Book of Days in any year is a labor of love, mostly involving two kindred spirits -- Laura Kuhn, of the John Cage Trust, its editor, and Naomi Yang, of Exact Change, its designer.

Naomi Yang and her partner Damon Krukowski are the publishers of John Cage's Composition in Retrospect. But Naomi has also worked with the John Cage Trust on her own, being the designer of the beautiful libretto booklet for the theatrical production of Cage's James Joyce, Marcel Duchamp, Erik Satie: An Alphabet produced by the John Cage Trust in 2001-2002.

Alphabet is being remounted this coming Fall at Bard College, November 11 and 12, 2011, 8 pm, on the Sosnoff Stage of the beautiful Frank Gehry Fisher Center for the Performing Arts.

Several of the original cast members will return:

John Kelly ("Narrator"),

Mikel Rouse ("James Joyce"),

and Trevor Carlson ("Brigham Young"),

but also Merce Cunningham ("Erik Satie"),

at least in spirit.

Merce's 2001 appearance in Alphabet marked his return to the "literary" stage after a hiatus of some 60 years. His voice, happily captured in his original performances, will continue to fill the role, but we're looking far and wide for the perfect corporeal spirit to inhabit his place on the stage. Melissa Madden Gray and Jasper Johns provide the ethereal, off-stage voices for Vocoder and Rrose Selavy (respectively), and we're currently searching for others to fill the remaining roles ("Henry David Thoreau," "Buckminster Fuller," "Robert Rauschenberg," "Oppian," "Marcel Duchamp," "Veblen," "Jonathan Albert," and "Mao Tse Tung"). This promises to be a lively start to Cage's centennial year.

But returning to the John Cage Book of Days 2012 for a moment, lest anyone think this is a collector's item, something to be placed tenderly on a shelf for eternal safe keeping, take a look at a page or two from the John Cage Book of Days 2011 belonging to Lupe Nunez-Fernandez of the band Amor de Dias.

And I thought my life was busy...

Laura Kuhn

"Lascia o Raddoppia" (Milan, 1959)

2011-04-24T08:50:00.045-04:00

It's been rumored over the years that John Cage was a contestant specializing in mushroom identification on "Lascia o Raddoppia" ("Double or Nothing"), Italy's famous quiz show hosted by Mike Bongiorno. Cage was in Milan in the late 1950s as a guest of the composer Luciano Berio, who was then working at the Studio di Fonologia, RAI's experimental studio for audio research. Sylvano Bussotti, Umberto Eco, Bruno Maderna, Roberto Leydi, Marino Zuccheri, Peggy Guggenheim, and Berio's wife, Cathy Berberian, were all close to Cage during this period. According to unconfirmed rumors, due to the tight relation of some of these individuals to RAI, Cage not only garnered a much-coveted spot on the game show as a contestant, but he may have been provided with at least some of the answers to the questions about mushrooms he would be asked en route to winning the final 5 million Lire prize.

(Photo caption: "John Cage is mostly known for his love of 'concrete' music rather than mycology. Such music makes a symphony out of bells or the sound of a train passing by. For the 'daily noises' program, John Cage constructed an orchestra consisting of a piano, two radios, a blender, a watering can, a whistle, a gong, and a kettle.")

During his five appearances on the show, Cage entertained the audience with his unusual compositions. The audience was constantly reminded that he was a composer from Stony Point, New York, and Bongiorno often made fun of his strange musical efforts. No footage has survived, although various people over the years have claimed to have seen it.

There apparently is at least an audio tape in existence, however, since the final episode's dialogue between Cage and Bongiorno has been transcribed and published. This transcription, which appeared for the first time in the October 1975 issue of Gong, an Italian music magazine of the 1970s, includes both the mushroom Q & A as well as a funny closing exchange between game show host and contestant wherein Cage is encouraged to spend more time in Italy without his music.

According to Carlo Bertocci, its contributor (whose ironic title is "The Prophet and the Puppetmaster," referring to Cage and Bongiorno, respectively), the tape was handed to him a couple of years earlier by his friend, Mario Leone. Bertocci's transcription was later reprinted in a series of essays about Cage in an Italian publication entitled "John Cage. Dopo di me il silenzio" (Emme Edizioni, December 1978), and still later in "Sonora's John Cage" (Materiali Sonori, 1993), an Italian/English collection of articles celebrating the composer that was published shortly after his death. It was most recently republished in a new collection of essays simply titled "John Cage" (Edizioni Mudima, 2009).

Click here for an English translation of this dialogue, which features the final questions about mushrooms posed to Cage that led to his winning the final 5 million Lire prize. This prize, incidentally, which amounted to roughly $8,000, was used to purchase a piano for Cage's Stony Point home as well as a Volkswagen bus for the fledgling Merce Cunningham Dance Company's use while touring the United States.

Very few photos of Cage's appearances on "Lascia o Raddoppia" have survived, including this screenshot, likely captured from the still-missing video footage:

But several new images are now available, thanks to Turin's newspaper, La Stampa, which published brief, intermittent reports about the show (with photographic illustrations) and whose archives have recently become available online.

Like this one, a slightly different shot than the one above of Cage and Bongiorno perusing Cage's Water Walk set up (from La Stampa, February 6, 1959, Issue No. 32, page 6).

And this one of Cage at the microphone, with headphones on his ears (from La Stampa, Friday, February 13, 1959, No. 38, page 4):

And yet another, this one a close-up of Cage in the sound booth (from La Stampa, Friday, February 13, 1959, No. 38, page 6).

Lastly, a little-known photo of John Cage and Peggy Guggenheim, taken in Venice (from La Stampa, Thursday, February 19, 1959, No. 43, page 6).

La Stampa's newly-available archives provide access to not only these little-known images, but to concrete evidence of Cage's appearances on "Lascia o Raddoppia": the first taking place on Thursday, January 29, 1959, continuing weekly on Thursday nights throughout February, with the final episode taking place on Thursday, February 26, 1959. Click here for English translations of chronologically-ordered excerpts from the most significant of the La Stampa articles.

"Lascia o Raddioppia" (Milan, 1959) is the first of what I hope will be many "guest" blogs, this one the work of our remarkable Italian Cage foreign correspondent, Stefano Pocci. Thank you, Stefano, for your persistent research and a beautiful piece, and do forgive any transgressions that have occurred in the adaptation of your work for Kuhn's Blog.

Laura Kuhn

Smelling the Proverbial Roses

2011-02-16T15:31:00.033-05:00

In the days just before Merce Cunningham died, we often just sat together, idly talking. One time, I was fidgeting with an unused wallet that was sitting on the small table between us, and, looking inside, I was surprised to find a single business card, very old and worn.

I looked up quizzically, and saw an uncharacteristically wistful expression on Merce's face. "Oh, that!" he said, taking it between his trembling fingers and smiling down at it. "I stayed there after our world tour. It was so beautiful, right on the water. I saved the card thinking that maybe I'd go back." He clumsily returned it to the wallet. "Did you?" I asked. He looked confused for a moment, then quietly replied, "Oh, no." Sadly shaking his head, he tossed the wallet onto the table. "There never seemed to be enough time."

This made me remember a conversation I once had with John Cage late in his life about regrets. Did he have any?

(Significantly, this conversation took place in the midst of a staggering amount of work being done on his Europeras 1 & 2 for the Frankfurt Oper, which almost did him in. No matter how much he delegated, Cage himself was functioning as composer, set designer, costumer, choreographer, lighting designer, director, librettist. The list goes on. And Cage in Wagner's shoes was not a natural fit.)

Just one, he allowed. It had to do with the Sarabhais in India (of Gita and Gira fame), who had once invited him to come with them on a trek into the wilds of their country, on elephants. He was sorry, he said, not to have made the time.

I shared this memory, along with the story of Merce's card, with Rob Shepperson, a lovely Hudson Valley artist, and asked if he might create an image of Cage's dream come true. He did, and I like to think it did, if on an unknown plane. As Richard Fleming says, referencing Camus (speaking of Sisyphus), one must imagine Cage happy.

Laura Kuhn

Evil and Silence (Richard Fleming)

2011-01-31T04:33:00.010-05:00

...Humans seem to be nothing but a walking injustice -- a featherless biped who makes mistakes. To be of passion is to yield to injustice. This is the life of the body and why some have argued for the need to be free of material existence if we are to achieve our moral ends. Surely, we should never claim to be a just person. This has never been our aim or conclusion. We have said only that we should set about to be just -- and also that such an ambition involves suffering and unhappiness. But is this distinction so important? It is what we fight for and must preserve. We know (without much effort or reflection) our disorder, the evidence of certain instincts, the graceless abandon into which we can throw ourselves. But we also know better now (because of our struggling efforts and reflections) the limits of our talk and action. We know better our possibilities. Often when we thought we were moving forward we were losing ground. Someday, when a balance is established between what we are and what we say and do, perhaps then, and we scarcely dare write it, we shall be able to construct the work of which we dream. "Shrill sound never roused me from my slumbers." Musical creation and expression are efforts that exhibit the silent threaded order of word and world and allow the meaningful possibility of a life that can be called good. Music can quiet and sober desperate lives. One must imagine Cage happy.

Richard Fleming, from "Second Book: Ordinary Silence," in Evil and Silence (Paradigm Publishers, 2010)

Laura Kuhn

John Cage & Electronic Publishing

2011-01-30T17:23:00.057-05:00

"We can't be satisfied with distribution now because it won't be very good. For instance, my book (Silence), published in the United States, is very difficult to get outside the United States, and that won't be solved, because all of the publishing problems of books, and objects, and things in quantity are still those of the previous culture. Yet with the number of people who work now -- the number of composers, the number of authors, and so on -- has vastly increased over the 19th century; but the number of publishers has not increased. The result is that you have traffic problems, so you have the kind of problems that all large cities encounter with automobile traffic. And I hear, where I go now, that in the future we may expect that private traffic in large cities will be forbidden. It may then equally be forbidden to produce a book that would require people to distribute it, but it will not be forbidden, certainly, to send information by electronic media throughout the world." (John Cage, 1965)

John Cage is ever presaging, but, to date, electronic publications of his writings are scant. Kindle (my e-reader of choice) offers only three: Ken Silverman's Begin Again: An Autobiography of John Cage (Knopf, 2010), Kyle Gann's No Such Thing as Silence: John Cage's 4'33" (Yale University Press, 2010), and Richard Kostelanetz's Conversing With Cage (Limelight Editions, 1988).* Apple's iBooks (and wouldn't Cage's mesostics positively shine on an iPad) offers nothing at all.

As the three Cage e-books go, it's not a bad line-up: a detailed biography, a comprehensive look at Cage's most infamous (and arguably most guiding) composition, and a compilation of conversational engagements (this last, happily, with an index). But, things are going to change. Wesleyan University Press, Cage's stalwart principal publisher for now 50 years, is hard at work with renderings of their entire Cage catalog into electronic form. But, here as elsewhere in the workaday world, Cage poses challenges: Cage's texts are anything but e-reader friendly, so publication (launch) dates are still uncertain. And while I'm at it, let me reveal (a bit ahead of the game) that Wesleyan University Press is busily preparing a 50th anniversary hardcover edition of Cage's maverick Silence (1961), with a beautiful foreword by none other than Kyle Gann.

*The Kindle Store also offers Kostelanetz's Preambles to the New (2009), comprised entirely of prefaces created for previous books. Collectively they span more than four decades (1963-2010), and are grouped

together chronologically under headings that suggest the direction each takes: "Criticism", "Literature", "Artists & Composers", "Politics", etc. There's a new "preamble" by Kostelanetz, and a new introduction, entitled "Master Kosti," contributed by John Rocco. This work is nothing short of masterful recycling, and an elevation of the foreword to dizzying heights. Richard Kostelanetz is an accomplished writer, and prolific to boot; Cage's personal library houses some 14 of his tomes, while the John Cage Trust's print archive includes nearly two dozen. My personal favorites, in addition to the Cage-infused works, are Esthetics Contemporary (Prometheus Books, 1978), Text-Sound-Texts (William Morrow & Co., 1980), and The Theatre of Mixed Means (Dial Press, 1968), all long out of print. A few of his writings are also available for online reading at questia.com, a division of Gale, Cengage Learning.

Laura Kuhn

Cage Against the Machine

2010-12-09T06:43:00.149-05:00

http://www.facebook.com/cageagainstthemachine

But let's start at the beginning.

The X Factor is a TV talent show franchise originating in the UK (2004) as a replacement for Pop Idol. It is a singing competition that pits contestants -- aspiring pop singers drawn from public auditions -- against each other. The programs are produced by British music executive, TV producer, and entrepreneur Simon Cowell and his company Syco TV, a subsidiary of his TV production and music publishing house Syco. The "X Factor" of the title refers to that certain, indefinable "something" that makes for star quality. The prize is public adulation and, usually, a recording contact.

A predictable fact in the UK, at least until quite recently, is that whoever wins The X Factor will assuredly release their winning song on a debut single that will go straight to No. 1 on the UK charts in time for Christmas. So when Joe McElderry won The X Factor in 2009 with the December 12 release of his terribly earnest ballad, "The Climb," he was confident he'd be celebrating the holidays in very celebrated style.

Ah, but it was not to be so. The 18-year old from South Shields was ousted by the California rock band Rage Against the Machi ne, and specifically for their re-release of the 1992 song, "Killing In The Name" (with the endearing iconic refrain, "Fuck you! I won't do what you tell me"). The upset was the result of a rather lofty Facebook campaign spearheaded by one Jon Morter, a 35-year old rock fan, part-time DJ, and logistics expert from Essex.

Morter had made a similar attempt in 2008 when he campaigned for Rick Astley's "Never Gonna Give You Up" against The X Factor starlet of that year, Alexandra Burke, and her song, "Hallelujah." He was not successful.

Unfazed, Morter decided to try again in 2009 with a campaign on behalf of Rage Against the Machine. But this time around he got a little help: On December 15, the comedian Peter Serafinowicz urged his 268,000+ Twitter followers to join in, and by the time Paul McCartney and former X Factor winner Steve Brookstein pledged their support, McElderry was already doomed.

Rage Against the Machine won the battle for Christmas top spot on the basis of +/- 500,000 downloads (a mere +/- 50,000 more than the runner-up). A pleasurable twist to the story was that Rage Against the Machine had gone in pledging that, should they win, 100% of the profits from their download would be given over to charities: specifically to the housing and homelessness organization Shelter, and Youth Music, the UK's largest children's music charity. True to their word, on June 6, 2010, Rage Against the Machine gave a concert in London's Finsbury Park to celebrate their success. During the set, which was attended by some 40,000 fans, the band presented the charities with a check for nearly $300,000.

Two months later, on August 12, 2010, a short piece by one Alun Palmer appeared in the Daily Mirror with the following headline: "Silence Isn't Golden for Simon Cowell and X Factor in Christmas No. Battle," wherein it was reported that a host of musicians would be gathering together to record experimental composer John Cage's classic work 4'33" as a viable contender against whomever (and whatever) Simon Cowell would ultimately throw into the 2010 ring.

"Cage Against the Machine" was started by the London-based artist Dave Hilliard in the summer of 2010 as a grassroots Facebook campaign to get Cage's 4'33" to No. 1 on the UK charts this Christmas. For him it may have simply been an amusement, or a petty war lodged against the tyranny of Simon Cowell, but, to date, it's garnered some 73,000 fans, infused over the past several months by the attention of Eddy Temple-Morris (Xfm presenter and CMU columnist), Joe Hutchinson (Ou Est Le Swimming Pool), and Mark Jones (Wall of Sound). Should 4'33" take the No. 1 spot, proceeds will again go to charities, this time five:

1. The British Tinnitus Association (BTA)

2. Campaign Against Living Miserably (CALM)

3. Nordoff Robbins Music Therapy

4. Youth Music

5. Sound and Music

Interesting stuff, no?

But The X Factor may not be Cage's only contender, or, from another point of view, Cage may not be a contender at all. Since the power of an energetic grassroots Facebook campaign is obviously some measure, we might want to keep an eye on The Trashmen's "Surfin' Bird," that ubiquitous little ditty recorded in 1964 by the Minnesota-based surf rock band known as The Trashmen, which reached #4 on the Billboard Hot 100. The Facebook campaign on behalf of The Trashmen's "Surfin' Bird" has attracted, to date, an astonishing 600,000+ fans.

"Surfin' Bird" is actually a combination of two contemporary R & B hits by The Rivingtons: "Papa-Oom-Mow-Mow" and "The Bird's the Word." The earliest pressings of the single credit The Trashmen as composers, but with the threat of a lawsuit by The Rivington's legal counsel, the credit was changed to reflect the song's true origins.

Such shady beginnings matter very little, of course, and the song went on to be covered by an astonishing array of musicians over the years, including (but not limited to) The Deviants, The Ramones, The Cramps, The Boppers, Silverchair, Equipe, Sodom, The Hep Stars, The Iguanas, The Studio Sound Ensemble, Sha Na Na, The Psycho Surfers, The Queers, The Wipe Outs, and even Pee-Wee Herman. It's also sustained itself in the culture via television and film, with repeated references in Family Guy -- "I Dream of Jesus," "Big Man on Hippocampus" (launching the song to #8 on the iTunes Top 10 Rock Songs chart and #50 on the UK Singles Chart in 2009), "April in Quahog," and "Welcome Back, Carter" -- and in a single episode of the beloved Spongebob Squarepants -- "I Love Dancing." It's at work in Stanley Kubrick's Full Metal Jacket as well as in John Waters' Pink Flamingo, and it's a soundtrack option in the popular video game Battlefield Vietnam.

But back to John Cage.

Last Monday the recording of 4'33" finally happened, with a Who's Who-worthy line-up of largely Indie artists packed into Studio One of London's legendary Dean Street Studios in London.

The latest tally (drawn from conflicting reports) includes Adam F., Aeroplane, Alexander Wolfe, Alice Russell, Anne Pigalle, Barry Ashworth, Billy Bragg, Big Pink, Bishi, Bo Ningen, Chas Smash, Coldcut, Crystal Fighters, Dan Le Sac, Does It Offend You Yeah?, Dub Pistols, Enter Shikari, Fenech Soler, Fyfe Dangerfield, Gallows, Guillemots, Heaven 17, Imogen Heap, Infadels, Japanese Popsters, Jarra York, John Foxx, John McLure, Kilford the Music Painter, Kooks, Loose Cannons, Man Like Me, Rix Mc, Monarchy, Mr. Hudson, Napolean IIIrd, Olly Wride Orbital, Ou Est Le Swimming Pool, Penguin Prison, Scroobius Pip, South Central, Suggs, Teeth!!!, Tom Alison, Tom Milsom, Unkle, Venus in Furs, Whitey...

The producers were Paul Epworth (Friendly Fires/Florence & The Machine), Clive Langer (Madness's producer), and Charlie Rapino (That That, Kylie Minogue). The event was also apparently filmed for a documentary and promo release by music film legend Dick Curruthers (Oasis, Manics, Rolling Stones).

****

The press has been relentless. Check out this, or this, or this, or this, or this, or this, or this (which, curiously, also finally reveals what really happened between Cage & Batt...), and then search anew tomorrow morning over coffee. As different as Cage's 4'33" is from whatever song emerges as victorious from The X Factor this weekend, it can't possibly be any more different than The Trashmen's "Surfin' Bird." Come what may (and be careful what you wish for), it's been pretty amazing to watch so many imaginations captured by Cage's work. What a world.

Laura Kuhn

John Cage, "How to Get Started" (1989- )

2010-11-10T16:50:00.017-05:00

Slought Foundation and the John Cage Trust have joined forces to present How to Get Started, a unique and permanent interactive installation featuring a rarely heard performance by John Cage.

John Cage's first and only performance of How to Get Started in 1989 was conceived of almost as an afterthought--a performance substituting for another that had been previously planned. In the performance, delivered at a sound design conference in Nicasio, California, Cage talks about the difficulty of initiating the creative process, and about improvisation, a subject about which he had long been deeply ambivalent. He proposes a collaborative framework in which sound engineers capture and subsequently layer his extemporized monologue, which consisted of ten brief commentaries on topics then of interest. This amounted to an experiment having to do with thinking in public before a live audience.

Twenty years after the initial performance, the John Cage Trust and Slought Foundation have created an interactive installation enabling the public to participate in its further life at Slought Foundation by adding their voice to the mix. The John Cage Trust turned to Slought Foundation for this collaboration in part because its range of projects has often referenced Cage and those he worked with or influenced during his long career. It is our joint intent that this installation will allow Slought Foundation to become a node of activity for artists, scholars, and others interested in Cage's life and work and ideas.

The project's website will become an evolving digital repository and archive for the recordings generated at Slought Foundation by invited artists and others.

For more information: http://howtogetstarted.org

What You Can Do

1. familiarize yourself with Cage's realization by visiting the website, attending the exhibition, or purchasing the project publication
2. get out ten index cards and write down ten topics of interest
3. practice extemporizing on each topic, in random order
4. notice that Cage never spoke for more than three minutes on a single topic
5. visit Slought Foundation and schedule a session

Curated by Laura Kuhn, Director of the John Cage Trust, Aaron Levy, Executive Director of Slought Foundation, and Arthur Sabatini, professor of Performance Studies at Arizona State University. Exhibition design by Ken Saylor, sound design by Peter Price, and exhibition graphics by Project Projects. Engineering of John Cage's recording by Chris Andersen, Nevessa Production. Photograph of John Cage by Loren Robare.

This program is made possible in part through the generous support of The Pew Center for Arts & Heritage through the Philadelphia Exhibitions Initiative. Support has also been provided by the Samuel S. Fels Fund, the John Cage Trust, and the Society of Friends of the Slought Foundation.

Two Words

2010-09-12T09:10:00.004-04:00

Sister Mary Katherine entered the Monastery of Silence.

The Priest said, 'Sister, this is a silent monastery. You are welcome here as long as you like, but you may not speak until directed to do so.'

Sister Mary Katherine lived in the monastery for 5 years before the Priest said to her, 'Sister Mary Katherine, you have been here for 5 years. You may speak two words.'

Sister Mary Katherine said, 'Hard bed.'

'I'm sorry to hear that,' the Priest said. 'We will get you a better bed.'

After another 5 years, Sister Mary Katherine was summoned by the Priest. 'You may say another two words, Sister Mary Katherine.'

'Cold food,' said Sister Mary Katherine, and the Priest assured her that the food would be better in the future.

On her 15th anniversary at the monastery, the Priest again called Sister Mary Katherine into his office. 'You may say two words today.'

'I quit,' said Sister Mary Katherine.

'It's probably for the best,' said the Priest. 'You've done nothing but bitch ever since you got here.'

Laura Kuhn

Foraging at the John Cage Trust

2010-09-03T11:57:00.056-04:00

Summer is upon us with a vengeance here in the Hudson Valley, and it was with great delight that I discovered a virtual forest of mushrooms in our very own expansive backyard. And not one but two different kinds! Does anyone know what these are?????

Cage was, of course, a more than amateur mycologist, one who, with Guy Nearing and others, founded the New York Mycological Society in 1962. He loved everything about mushrooms, but maybe especially their culinary possibilities. He nearly killed himself on one once, a mishap recounted with wry humor in one of the stories for Indeterminacy that didn't make it into the Smithsonian Folkways recording:

"When I first moved to the country, David Tudor, M.C. Richards, the Weinribs, and I all lived in the same small farmhouse. In order to get some privacy I started taking walks in the woods. It was August. I began collecting the mushrooms which were growing more or less everywhere. Then I bought some books and tried to find out which mushroom was which. Realizing I needed to get to know someone who knew something about mushrooms, I called the 4-H Club in New City. I spoke to a secretary. She said they'd call me back. They never did.

The following spring, after reading about the edibility of skunk cabbage in Medsger's book on wild plants, I gathered a mess of what I took to be skunk cabbage, gave some to my mother and father (who were visiting) to take home, cooked the rest in three waters with a pinch of soda as Medsger advises, and served it to six people, one of whom, I remember, was from the Museum of Modern Art. I ate more than the others did in an attempt to convey my enthusiasm over edible wild plants. After coffee, poker was proposed. I began winning heavily. M.C. Richards left the table. After a while she came back and whispered in my ear, "Do you feel all right?" I said, "No, I don't. My throat is burning and I can hardly breathe." I told the others to divide my winnings, that I was folding. I went outside and retched. Vomiting with diarrhea continued for about two hours. Before I lost my will, I told M.C. Richards to call Mother and Dad and tell them not to eat the skunk cabbage. I asked her how the others were. She said, "They're not as bad off as you are." Later, when friends lifted me off the ground to put a blanket under me, I just said, "Leave me alone." Someone called Dr. Zukor. He prescribed milk and salt. I couldn't take it. He said, "Get him here immediately." They did. He pumped my stomach and gave adrenalin to keep my heart beating. Among other things, he said, "Fifteen minutes more and he would have been dead."

I was removed to the Spring Valley hospital. There during the night I was kept supplied with adrenalin and I was thoroughly cleaned out. In the morning I felt like a million dollars. I rang the bell for the nurse to tell her I was ready to go. No one came. I read a notice on the wall which said that unless one left by noon he would be charged for an extra day. When I saw one of the nurses passing by I yelled something to the effect that she should get me out since I had no money for a second day. Shortly the room was filled with doctors and nurses and in no time at all I was hustled out.

I called up the 4-H Club and told them what had happened. I emphasized by determination to go on with wild mushrooms. They said, "Call Mrs. Clark on South Mountain Drive." She said, "I can't help you. Call Mr. So-and-so." I called him. He said, "I can't help you, but call So-and-so who works in the A&P in Suffern. He knows someone in Ramsey who knows the mushrooms." Eventually, I got the name and telephone of Guy G. Nearing. When I called him, he said, "Come over any time you like. I'm almost always here, and I'll name your mushrooms for you."

I wrote a letter to Medsger telling him skunk cabbage was poisonous. He never replied. Some time later I read about the need to distinguish between skunk cabbage and the poisonous hellebore. They grow at the same time in the same places. Hellebore has pleated leaves. Skunk cabbage does not."

And years later he gambled with the lives of many of us attending the 1989 "Composer-to-Composer Festival" in Telluride, Colorado, when he cooked up a batch he couldn't quite identify for a communal, post-concert dinner. We gobbled them down and, obviously, lived to tell. By the way, in case you don't know it, the Telluride Mushroom Festival is a very big deal in the Rocky Mountain West, being a celebration of "all things fungal & entheogenic" whose 30th annual just passed.

Cage's personal library, housed here at the John Cage Trust, was full of books about mushrooms, many for use in the kitchen. One of his favorites was this one here -- Wild Mushroom Recipes (1976), put out by the Puget Sound Mycological Society, edited by Pauline Shiosaki -- obviously pre-dating his devotion to macrobiotics. Look below for three randomly drawn recipes from this sweet little collection.

Anyone interested in the subject will want to peruse the holdings of the John Cage Mycology Collection, gifted in 1971 by Cage himself to the University of California, Santa Cruz, and long lovingly administered by Rita Bottoms. Alas, the materials comprising this collection are not available online, but there is quite a bit of detail about what's there (photographs, correspondence, newsletters, historical records) should you want to consider a visit. And don't miss one of the most beautiful compilation essays written to date on the subject that appeared in a little-known magazine called Fungi (Volume 1, Winter 2008), entitled "A Plurality of One: John Cage and the People-to-People Committee on Fungi," authored by David W. Rose. Really, really good reading!

Laura Kuhn

Fun Things Abroad

2010-09-01T06:34:00.013-04:00

This summer has been especially rich with travel, most of it for the sheer pleasure of attending Cage-related events in Europe. Since June, I've visited Newcastle, Florence, and Halberstadt, and while each of the host organizations and/or venues has fairly extensive expository Web materials to browse, I thought I'd share some unique photos, a few words about highlights, and some links. Each was lovely, in its own unique way.

First stop, Newcastle, in the north of England, for the first of five venues of "Every Day is Good Day," the brainchild of Roger Malbert and Jeremy Millar brought forth as a touring exhibition under the auspices of London's Southbank Centre (where Malbert is senior curator). This is an exhibition deeply inspired by John Cage, since the use of chance operations determines the layout of the exhibition from venue to venue. More than 100 works, most borrowed from the permanent collection of the John Cage Trust and including drawings, watercolors, and prints, are seen in ever-changing configurations. And although the exhibition itself focuses on Cage's visual art, each venue is programming ancillary events that explore other aspects of Cage's practices -- music, to be sure, but also writings, dance, performance, and film. The exhibition catalog is the first to touch upon all aspects of Cage's work as a visual artist, and it includes more than 60 plates. It also incorporates a substantial extract from Irving Sandler's thoughtful 1966 interview with Cage on the subject of visual art.

Newcastle's Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art is grand, and the collection breathes beautifully here. I especially loved its installation of Cage's HPSCHD (seen above). While the Baltic iteration closes on Sept. 5, others can be seen successively at Kettle's Yard in Cambridge (Sept. 25-Nov. 14), the Huddersfield Museum and Art Gallery (Nov. 20-Jan. 8), Glasgow's Hunterian Art Gallery (Feb. 19-Apr. 2), and the De La Warr Pavilion in Bexhill on Sea (Apr. 16-June 5). There may be a culminating event at Southbank itself, in September 2011, so stay tuned.

Second stop*, Florence, for a lively "musicircus" (June 24, 2010) at the exquisite national museum of the Palazzo Vecchio. Imagine some 80 of Cage's compositions sounding variously (and simultaneously) throughout these hallowed halls -- really, one could only marvel at the sheer presence of electronic sound in the Salone dei Cinquecento! The event was entitled "Music Exposed" and involved roughly 40 musicians of the seasoned Flamensemble, headed up by Andrea Cavallari. Their performances ran for over eight hours (attended by literally thousands of people), which were beautifully captured by the remarkable photographer Riccardo Cavallari (incidentally, Andrea's twin brother!). Check out his slideshow here.

*An asterisk here because technically my second stop was Lyon for discussions with Thierry Raspail, director of the Musee d'art contemporain de Lyon, about bringing France into the John Cage 2012 fold. With luck, more about this later in the year.

Third stop, Halberstadt, to not only bear witness (July 5, 2010) to a note change in Cage's elongated Organ2/ASLSP in the Church of St. Buchardi but to execute it! While the work was launched by the John Cage Organ Project on Cage's birthday in 2001, this was my first visit and it was something of an epiphany. I usually arrive only for the bittersweet culmination of people's engagement with Cage, but in Halberstadt it was I who was ephemeral, since the work will be ongoing long after any of us is here to witness. It was an extremely moving experience -- as much for the people involved as for the sounding of the work. And in case you missed it, here's Daniel Wakin's piece as it appeared in the New York Times (2007), sweetly entitled "An Organ Recital for the Very, Very Patient."

The image just above, by the way, is of the gateway to a garden situated behind the home of one of the key participants of the John Cage Organ Project, where many meals were shared. In my experience, such gathering spots are critical, since they not only provide necessary respites for weary travelers, but the even more necessary space to communally reflect and converse. I am reminded of the many, many impromptu late-night, post-concert suppers at the Cage-Cunningham loft, for which I will always be grateful. New York City can be a lonely place without them.

Laura Kuhn

Three Ends of the Cinematic Spectrum

2010-08-26T09:35:00.026-04:00

I have three three remarkable films to share with you, each (quite differently) related to John Cage:

First, because it's the newest, is Scorcese's latest*: Shutter Island, a genre thrilled based on the 2003 novel by Dennis Lehane with an extraordinary performance by Leonard DiCaprio. While I loved every inch of this film, I especially loved its soundtrack, compiled by Robbie Robertson, former lead guitarist of The Band, which weaves together music by Ligeti, Marshall, Penderecki, Scelsi, Feldman, Richter, Eno, Schnittke, Harrison, Adams, Hodgkinson, Mahler, Erickson, and Cage. Actually, two of Cage's works are heard -- Root of an Unfocus (Boris Berman, on Naxos) and Music for Marcel Duchamp (Philip Vandre, on Mode) -- and in just the right spots (no spoilers here)!

What's also included in Robertson's soundtrack that's received less than its critical due is Nam June Paik's Hommage a John Cage (1959-60), subtitled "Music for Tape Recorder and Piano." This was Paik's first staged action outside the boundaries of conventional music, significantly in the same venue Cage first presented his Music Walk the year before (Dusseldorf's Gallerie 22). Click here for a nice encapsulation, courtesy of Medien/Kunst/Netz, and here for a cool audio/visual clip, courtesy of the ubiquitous youtube.com.

*Scorcese's working with 3-D technology for his next film, The Invention of Hugo Cabret, based on the best-selling children's book by Brian Selznick recounting the story of a 12 year-old boy who lives in a Paris train station in the 1930s.

©Ralph Benko

Second, because it's the most exquisite, is as fast/slow as possible, conceived and directed by the German filmmaker and airplane pilot Paul Depprich. "What is time? What is velocity?" So begins Depprich's ponderous concept statement about his 8 hour and 23 minute HD recording of a transatlantic flight from Berlin to New York. Depprich is exploring the discrepancies that exist between objective and subjective time and speed, having been deeply inspired by Cage's As Slow As Possible, currently and for the next 600+ years being glacially sounded in Halberstadt, Germany.

This is definitely one of those times when words can't describe experience, or, put in the reverse, when art reveals itself anew. What isn't so evident in Depprich's words is just how beautiful those discrepancies can be felt when vividly captured on HD video and experienced from a living room couch. As he points out, those phases of the flight that seem the fastest -- take-off and landing -- are actually the slowest, whereas when we're up in the air and seem timelessly afloat, we're moving at maximum speed.

You're seeing only the demo DVD here, lasting a mere 32'39". With luck, I'll be enticing the folks at the Anthology Film Archives here in New York to do a screening of Depprich's extraordinary whole in their upcoming season.

Third and last, because it's an archival find, is Dove vai in vacanza? (Where Do You Go on Vacation?), a 1978 Italian gem comprising three independent episodes: I'll be all for you, directed by Mauro Bolognini, Buana, directed by Luciano Salce, and Intelligent Holidays, directed by Alberto Sordi. It's the last that I'm bringing to your attention, since Cage's 4'33" makes an extremely serious appearance here in what is otherwise a very funny scene.

The plot is simple: Remo (played by Sordi), a greengrocer, and his wife, Augusta (played by Anna Longhi), have been sent on a big city holiday by their snooty if well-meaning children, who, being close to graduation, wish their parents to experience something of their superior, learned ways before flying the coop. Remo and Augusta are treated to a number of mystifying cultural experiences on this holiday, including a meal of miniaturized food, a concert of unfathomable music, and a gallery exhibition that would do well today in Soho if painted sheep were still allowed.

While I'd recommend that you see this entire film, it's virtually impossible to come by. So, let me share at least the concert attended that includes the performance of Cage's 4'33" (which lasts a timid 2'14"). And do forgive the audio quality of this clip, which was lifted from a very aged VHS tape. The soundtrack, by the way, is by none other than Ennio Morricone, released as an LP in 1979 by RCA Italian (BL 31435).

There's a potential prize in store for those of you who've made it to the end of this lengthy blog: something hot off the press from the John Cage Trust to the first 10 people who correctly identify the other works on the program.

Laura Kuhn

John Cage's Lonely Grant Application

2010-08-25T20:51:00.000-04:00

There were many, many dinner parties at Merce Cunningham's loft over the years, but one in particular comes to mind with regard to the subject of the present blog.

I was preparing food at the long wooden block just inside the kitchen, greeting guests as they came in the front door. Merce was seated on one of the barstools just across from me, and Jasper Johns, one of the first guests to arrive, lingered as he came in to chat. I was in a particularly disgruntled mood, sharing my thoughts with the composer Mikel Rouse, another early guest, about the difficulties of being an artist in today's society. It was a mundane conversation, one of many, this time on the heels, if memory serves, of the dissolution of the N.E.A.'s program of awarding grants to individual artists. "It's virtually impossible to be an artist today" we jointly bemoaned to anyone who'd listen. Jasper snorted a bit, rolled his eyes, and turned to Merce with an aside. "Yes," he said. "It was so easy when we were starting out!"

I was humbled, to say the least, since it is of course true that any artist worth his or her salt finds life difficult for any number of reasons, be it 50 years ago or today. So, apropros this little anecdote, I thought it might interest people to take a look at John Cage's only grant application, submitted sometime around 1940, when he was not yet 30 years old, to the Guggenheim Foundation. He was requesting support for a Center of Experimental Music at Mills College with the stated purpose of undertaking "research in the field of sounds and rhythms formerly considered not music."

I'm not sure if this will make you feel better or worse, but his application was denied.

Laura Kuhn

3 Good Reads

2010-07-29T10:24:00.000-04:00

All manner of books come to my notice here at the John Cage Trust, and some want far wider attention than they might otherwise receive from normal channels of publisher distribution and advertising. Hence, here are three mini-reviews of my summer reading thus far!

The biggest surprise is Jannika Bock's Concord in Massachusetts, Discord in the World: The Writings of Henry Thoreau and John Cage, a dissertation completed at the University of Hamburg (2008) and published as Volume 6 in the "American Cultures Series" by Peter Lang. Barring the obstacles to pure reading pleasure inherent in any academic writing -- text that argues incessantly with itself, the repetitive reiteration of what's been said and what will be said -- this is an extremely useful book, fairly comprehensive of an extremely important topic. I say fairly because Bock's coverage is limited to Cage's published writings, without benefit of the lesser-known manuscripts housed here at the John Cage Trust. Nonetheless, I found this book extremely illuminating, but maybe less for what is said about John Cage than for what is said about Henry David Thoreau. The author is German born, and her work is further testament, if any is needed, to the value of outside eyes that look pointedly in. We know that Thoreau was important to Cage, evidenced by the many works by Cage that rely in one way or another upon the work of Thoreau, but after reading this book I'm tempted to go further and say that Cage may in fact have been Thoreau's embodiment in music.

Another remarkable book that I've watched long in the making is Renee Levine Packer's The Life of Sounds: Evenings for New Music in Buffalo (2010), now available from Oxford University Press. This is a compelling account of the lively new music scene that began at the State University of Buffalo in the 1960s that culminated with the appointment of Morton Feldman as director in the 1970s (following in the formidable wake of Lukas Foss and Lejaren Hiller). The text is authoritative and insightful (Levine Packer was a key official with the Center of the Creative and Performing Arts), and also beautifully written. Cage figures nicely here, of course, alongside the veritable who's who that was Buffalo at the time: George Crumb, Terry Riley, Cornelius Cardew, Maryanne Amacher, Frederic Rzewski, David Tudor, Julius Eastman, Jim Tenney, Iannis Xenakis, and many, many others. The book provides valuable accounts of the Center's influential concert series, "Evenings for New Music," and the extensive appendix materials include a useful timeline, interviews, a roster of the Creative Associates (and graduate fellows) from 1964 to 1980, and a selected discography of recordings by members of the Center. Brava, Renee!

And, I'm happy to say that I was privileged last week to read the galley proofs of Kenneth Silverman's long-awaited and now forthcoming Begin Again: A Biography of John Cage, soon to be published by Knopf. Silverman is a well seasoned biographer, whose previous works have focused on the likes of Samuel Morse, Houdini (Ehrich Weiss), Edgar A. Poe, and Cotton Mather. He's clearly inclined toward the experimental and iconoclastic, and he situates Cage squarely within a camp that includes Gertrude Stein, Charles Ives, Henry David Thoreau, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and, perhaps especially, Walt Whitman. I expect this book to greatly diminish at least a bit of my work here at the John Cage Trust, in that it answers many a biographical question. (Not to sound immodest, but even I learned a lot from its innumerable anecdotes!) It's extremely well researched evidenced by the meticulous substantiations that comprise its "Documentation" section. Add to this is a lively little CD of a dozen or so excerpts of works by Cage previously released on Mode Records, provided courtesy of Brian Brandt, and featuring such stellar performers as Philipp Vandre, Martine Joste, Ensemble Modern, Irvine Arditti, Stephen Drury, and even Cage himself. Excellent work, Ken, and may this first exemplary biography of John Cage set the bar for many more to come!

And just a little heads-up that the John Cage Book of Days 2011 is now available! My favorite Cage quote of this new edition?

"We can't know when, but being cheerful helps."

Laura Kuhn

3 Noteworthy Things

2010-05-20T11:11:00.002-04:00

Sometimes the workload here at the John Cage Trust is such that important things sort of flit by, almost unnoticed. Once they finally attraction proper attention, however, they simply won't leave my head until I manage to pass them along to others. Such is the case with three distinct items from the past week or so, which I'm sharing here, below, in no particular order of import.

First, in case anyone's missed it: Kyle Gann's latest book, No Such Thing As Silence: John Cage's 4'33", is now available from Yale University Press. This book is really, really marvelous, and should be quickly devoured by any and all Cage enthusiasts, novice and seasoned alike. (I particularly loved the materials on Cage and Muzak, which I found both charming and enlightening.) Kyle is a colleague here at Bard College, but we've been friends for years, dating back to the days when he was the heralded music critic for The Village Voice. Gann's latest effort is really impressive, as much for what it is as for what it isn't: this is a reasoned, concise, playful, and soundly comprehensive book about John Cage's 4'33", without critical obfuscation -- no side bars, no witty anecdotal meanderings, no cheeky offhand remarks. Just a very good read about a very important work.

Second, virtually everyone knows John Cage's Water Walk, as performed by the master himself on the 1960 American TV quiz show "I've Got a Secret." While it hasn't garnered as much press as, say, Halberstadt's 639-year unfolding of Cage's ASLSP, or the kerfuffle that ensued over Mike Batt's alleged appropriation of Cage's 4'33" for The Planets' first CD, "Classical Graffiti," it is definitely the work by Cage, at present and to date, with the greatest World Wide Web presence.

But what may have gone virtually unnoticed is a very nice article by the Toronto-based artist Laura Paolini on the subject of this performance within the context of what was arguably something of the best of prime-time American television in the early 1960s, entitled "John Cage's Secret". This is a really nice piece that digs a little deeper into Cage's forays into contemporary (dare I say pop) culture than most. It appeared in an interesting if little-known magazine emanating out of Montreal called Les Fleurs du Mal (specifically, Vol. 3, No., in an issue entitled "Secret"), which serves as a creative forum for emerging and professional artists. It's published only occasionally, with all of its content open to the public, so keep an eye out for the next edition.

Third, and last, and a bit of a surprise, is the lovely Reverend Colin Bossen, Minister of the Unitarian Universalist Society of Cleveland, who recently gave a church worship service entitled "The Buddha Should be as Useful as a Can: Meditations on the Spirituality of John Cage" (Sunday, May 16, 2010, 11am-12noon). Not only did Reverend Bossen incorporate into his service readings from Cage's Anarchy and Lecture on Nothing, but Karin Tooley, church musician (and, interestingly, extensively engaged as a pianist for dancers), interpolated performances of Cage's Two Pieces for Piano, Ophelia, In A Landscape, and 4'33" as well. Reverend Bossen's sermon was so thoughtful, and his context for reflection so unusual by standard Cage measures, I can't resist sharing this with you, here, in transcript. Rumor has it that there'll be an mp3 audio version of this sermon available soon, accessed through the Unitarian Universalist Society of Cleveland's website, so do check back.

Laura Kuhn

Lecture on the Weather: John Cage in Buffalo

2010-05-17T07:15:00.014-04:00

Last February, Emy Martin, who works here at the John Cage Trust at Bard College, attended The Burchfield Penney Art Center at Buffalo State College's closing weekend of Lecture on the Weather: John Cage in Buffalo, a marathon 23-day theatrical event organized by its Associate Director, Don Metz.

The title of this event refers, of course, to Cage's Lecture on the Weather, a multimedia stage work composed in collaboration with Maryanne Amacher and Luis Frangella on commission from the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation in 1975 in observance of America's bicentennial. Based on texts of Henry David Thoreau, it's a work that brings together various elements -- speech, music, film, lighting, and a weather soundscape -- to form a softly political piece as relevant today as the year it was written. It was the work chosen for inclusion at the commemoratve 2007 concerts celebrating the placement of the John Cage Trust at Bard College, hosting an all-star cast: John Ashbery, Ralph Benko, Leon Botstein, Sage Cowles, Merce Cunningham, Jasper Johns, John Kelly, Garry Kvistad, Joan Retallack, Mikel Rouse, John Ralston Saul, Richard Teitelbaum, and a select number of extremely talented students from Bard's Conservatory of Music and Music Program. The work was performed twice, separated by a brief intermission, with a subtle change of cast. While we wait for an angel to sprinkle upon us the funds needed for a commercial release (and thanks in the meantime to Chris Andersen at Nevessa Production in Saugerties for painstakingly beautiful recordings -- stereo *and* Dolby surround!), click here for a slideshow of images from the Bard College performances captured by Donald Dietz, accompanied by Cage's reading of his introductory "Preface" to the work, as heard in the premiere CBC performance.

But, returning to Lecture on the Weather: John Cage in Buffalo, Cage was in Buffalo nearly 20 times between 1960 and 1991, participating in concerts and residencies involving the Center for the Creative and Performing Arts, June in Buffalo, Evenings for New Music at the Albright-Knox Art Gallery, the S.E.M. Ensemble, and the North American New Music Festival. As Martin notes, what made this festival so unique was that Buffalo itself was included as a guest artist, since this event showcased talent from Western New York, many of whom were inspired by the work of John Cage (see participants list below). Don Metz tells how the event came to be:

"The catalyst for this exhibition was a chance conversation with Jan and Diane Williams while walking through the east gallery at the Burchfield Penney. Jan had just participated in two distinct performances of Lecture on the Weather presented by the John Cage Trust: one at Bard College's Fisher Performing Arts Center and the other, co-sponsored by the Electronic Music Foundation, at the Chelsea Art Museum in New York City. Jan and Diane thought that the East Gallery would be an ideal performance venue for the work -- the 28' ceiling height for the film projections by Luis Frangella and the 5 1/2" reverberation for sound by Maryanne Amacher would work well here, we thought, if we could open up the gallery for a weekend sometime in-between exhibitions. As chance would have it, a change in our exhibition schedule provided an opportunity for a 23-day exhibition. After numerous conversations, it was decidedLecture on the Weathercould be performed four times during the exhibition's run, and we would project Frangella's film and Amacher's sounds that accompany the performance at non-performance times. After the customary research into copyright issues, the exhibition was set.

It became evident that we would need a computer to send the images and sounds throughout the gallery utilizing some kind of random playback system. I asked Brian Milbrand if he would be interested in assisting with this and he said yes. He told me that he and Kyle Price had recently created a piece for toy piano, interactive multimedia, and female voice in honor of John Cage. I asked him if he would be interested in performing it during the run of the exhibition. Brian spoke to Kyle and they readily agreed.

I began contemplating other performances and thought about Sixty Two Mesostics re: Merce Cunningham. A pattern was evolving, and as I began talking to other Cage fans about the project, I would ask them if they would like to be involved. The enthusiasm was sensational, and as artists were added to perform both Cage's music and their own, I began imagining the exhibition as a 23-day theatrical performance. As works were selected, they were added to the random playback system to be presented at various intervals during gallery hours. At times, these recordings would overlap with live performances. As in a Cage "musicircus," the audience was situated in the center of the Gallery and free to move around while experiencing sounds from other galleries as they bleed into various spaces.

In selecting artists and their proposed works, there was no real thought as to what would fit 'best.' I simply mentioned the project to people that I ran into who I knew were interested in Cage. If they asked to be involved, I simply said, Yes!"

As Emy recounted, the feeling in the air over the course of the weekend was both incredibly organized and incredibly relaxed. So that there was enough discipline to listen, but also enough space to simply let your mind wander. As she put it, "Structurally everything was at ease, and those of us in the audience, like the performers themselves, had an unmistakeable calm about them". Which was no small feat, given the density of the programming. Click here for a PDF of the complete schedule of performances, and here for the final weekend's rendezblue "Chance Operations" program booklet.

with works by: John Cage, Michael Basinki, John Bacon, Brian Milbrand, Andrew Deutsch, Kyle Price, J.T. Rinker, Tom Kostusiak, Jeff Proctor, John Toth, Bill Sack, David Lampe, Peter Ramos, Michael Colquhoun, Elliot Caplan, David Felder, Bohuslav Martinu, Jacob Druckman, Erik Satie, and Ron Ehmke. with performances by: A Musical Feast, Bugallo/Williams Duo, Bufffluxus, Buffalo State College Percussion Ensemble, Michael Basinki, John Bacon, Brian Milbrand, Andrew Deutsch, Kyle Price, J.T. Rinker, Tom Kostusiak, David Lampe, Ed Cardoni, Tony Conrad, Peter Ramos, Brad Fuster, Don Metz, Bill Sack, Ron Emke, Jeff Proctor, Michael Miskuly, Diane Williams, Jan Williams, Pam Swarts, Alan Kryszak, Michael Colquhoun, Daniel Darnley, Peter Evans, Jacob Frasier, Xiaohang Li, Mathew Tate, Cris Fritton, Jeannie Hoag, Mike Mahoney, Holly Meldard, and Steve Zultanski.

Laura Kuhn

Something About Cage's Time

2010-04-27T10:50:00.001-04:00

I alluded late last year, on the heels of our John Cage Symposium at Bard College, to an interesting talk given at one of the sessions by Bard's resident biologist and (more than) amateur watchsmith, Dwane Decker, entitled "Replicable Chance: Time as Structure in Aleatory Composition" (11/1/09, 10 a.m., Olin Hall).

The audience was modest, as was the case for virtually all of the Symposium sessions, but the response in this case was particularly enthusiastic. Of course, any lecture on the subject of "Cage and Time" piques the interest of any Cage enthusiast, and even the laziest among us showed up for Decker's early morning talk. But no one could have anticipated Decker's unique vantage point, which was to explore Cage's use of (and interest in) time through an in-depth look at his personal timepieces.

Decker's presentation has stayed with me for months -- perhaps as much for its intimacy as its originality -- and I'm very happy to say that he's agreed to let us link to a transcript of his complete presentation here. Well, not quite complete. What's *not* included here is his really elucidating closing demonstration: a screening of Cage's performance of Water Walk (courtesy of the ubiquitous 1960 episode of "I've Got a Secret"), while at the same time manipulating, as Cage may well have done, the two synchronized second hands of Cage's own A.R. and J.E. Meylan stopwatch, which we were able to witness via microscope projections to screen. The audience was, to say the least, enthralled.

In addition to Cage's watches -- both his A.R. and J.E. Meylan Swiss stopwatch and his workaday Accutron Spaceview from America's own Bulova Watch Company, both of which are covered in great detail in Decker's talk -- the John Cage Trust is home to two other well-known Cage timepieces:

The doubled-faced, dual-action clock he used whenever engaged in competitive chess matches at home, and

his doubles-as-a-doorstop, metal-encased Kodak Timer, reportedly used in several performances of his Concerto for Piano and Orchestra.

The Kodak Timer, of course, has been memorialized in Jack Mitchell's well known and quite marvelous photograph of John Cage, Merce Cunningham, and "clock" (c.1968).

But while I'm on the subject of the John Cage at Bard College Symposium, let me share a slide show of some 90-odd images taken across the three days by the amazing photographer Donald Dietz.

The presenters, performers, and all-around essential participants, many of whom you'll recognize, were Katherine Adamov, James Bagwell, Bob Bielecki, David Bloom, Jo Brand, Frank Corliss, Dwane Decker, Kyle Gann, Kayo Iwama, Michael Ives, Rebeccah Johnson, Erica Kiesewetter, Laura Kuhn, Peter Laki, Tom Mark, Emy Martin, Julie Martin, Robert Martin, Blair McMillen, Rufus Muller, NEXUS (Bob Becker, Bill Cahn, Russell Hartenberger, Garry Kvistad), John Pruitt, Joan Retallack, Marina Rosenfeld, Sandra Skurvida, Jenni Sorkin, Richard Teitelbaum, and Jason Treuting. And, of course, the many, many incredible students from the Bard College Conservatory, Music Program, Graduate Vocal Arts Program, and Center for Curatorial Studies. And thank you to Brian Nozny for his beautiful arrangement of Cage's Chess Pieces, reprised here, and Leon Botstein for the sumptuous opening day lunch.

Laura Kuhn

The John Cage Prepared Piano Project

2010-02-10T14:10:00.013-05:00

One of the very real pleasures of running the John Cage Trust is learning early on about interesting, under-the-radar projects going on around the world involving John Cage's work. This one was brought to my attention late last year by its producer, Ju-Ping Song.

Ms. Song is a pianist at the Pennsylvania Academy of Music in Lancaster. In August 2008 she was charged with creating a new music department, and to "...come up with a first project that would bring new sounds to [students'] ears without alienating them. The works to be performed needed to be interesting enough without being too stylistically or technically difficult. And the end result -- the performance -- had to make a statement, not be just another student recital.

"The Academy is responsible for more than 300 pre-college level students, and as her first project, Ms. Song prepared 16 children aged 6 to 18, along with two adults, for a tag-team performance of Cage's Sonatas & Interludes for Prepared Piano.

This was reportedly the children's first exposure to Cage's music. They learned first about preparing a piano, Ms. Song recounts, along the way being exposed to a kind of music that does not necessarily have a classical tonal center or regular meters. While skeptical at first, the participants were soon won over, and ended up revealing themselves to be children with "open minds and dedicated hearts".

The John Cage Prepared Piano Project was testing ground for a New Sounds Concert Series at Penn Academy, its mission "to create and nurture a need for contemporary art music in our daily lives." With its success came the formation of two new ensembles, both with flexible instrumentation, and a three-concert series planned for this coming spring. The second, performed by NakedEye Ensemble (faculty-based), slated for March 26, will include works by David Lang, Kengo Tokusashi, Luciano Berio, Louis Andriessen, and Kim Helweg. On April 18, the third concert will feature Barefoot Ensemble (student-based) in its first-ever concert of works by Charles Ives, Frederic Rzewski, Peter Hatch, Steve Reich, and John Pamintuan, this last a New Sounds commission for children's choir and ensemble.

But the first concert of the Series, scheduled for February 26, will be given by none other than Ju-Ping Song herself, Founder-Director of the Series, performing works by Cage, Stephen Montague, George Crumb, Peter Hatch, and Rzewski. In addition to her work at the Penn Academy, Ms. Song is a founding member of FLAMEnsemble, an eclectic and flexible group that organizes and performs in a yearly contemporary music festival in Florence. This year FLAMEnsemble's "Musica Esposta" at the Museo Nazionale del Bargello plans to include a non-stop "John Cage Day" on June 24, which, at last count, will feature nearly 50 works!

In addition to its regular concert series, future projects at the Academy include a biannual "Composer Portrait Series", commencing Spring 2010 with a live performance of Philip Glass's music to accompany a rare screening of Godfrey Reggio's complete "Qatsi Trilogy": Koyaanisqatsi, Powaqqatsi, and Nagoyqatsi. In the Spring of 2012, we'll feast upon an ambitious three-day John Cage Centennial Festival, featuring not only Cage's music, but also writings, artworks, and films.

Laura Kuhn

John Cage Arrangements

2009-11-30T15:50:00.001-05:00

While arrangements are not uncommon in musical practice -- the reworking of a composition written for one instrument or a set of instruments for another -- in John Cage's case they are quite unusual. There are really only two works in his lengthy catalog that fit neatly into this category: his Cheap Imitation (1969) for piano, deriving from a 1918 dramatic composition by the French composer Erik Satie entitled Socrate, originally conceived for voice and orchestra, and his Hymns and Variations (1979) for 12 amplified voices, based solely upon two early American hymn tunes by William Billings, Old North and Heath.

While both works are remarkable purely as arrangements, they're also noteworthy for their sheer melodiousness, not an adjective commonly applied to Cage's works of their time. And Cheap Imitation is also unusual for its history, spanning as it does some 30 peregrinating years, which is all beautifully recounted in James Pritchett's liner notes for the Mode Records 1998 CD, "Cage: The Works for Piano 3", capturing the magnificent keyboard artistry of Stephen Drury.

But here's a bit of archival footage of Cage himself playing the work in 1975 in a classroom setting at Broward Community College in Dade County, Florida, shared courtesy of Gustavo Matamoros, Director of Miami's Interdisciplinary Sound Arts Workshop.

Given the paucity of arrangements in his own catalog, one might wonder what Cage would think of the two works that make use of his works that were featured at last month's John Cage at Bard College Symposium. Of all of the pieces included in the two evening programs (this is a pdf file) at the Fisher Center for the Performing Arts on Oct. 30 and 31, these little-known arrangements were clear audience favorites.

The first, Eric Salzman's Five Dances (1996-97), is an arrangement for string quartet of five works by Cage originally composed for prepared piano: Our Spring Will Come (1943), Dream (1948), Totem Ancestor (1943), In a Landscape (1948), and A Room (1943). While long available from C.F. Peters as EP 67725, the work is rarely performed. Here's the third movement from the feisty performance by four of Bard College's finest Conservatory musicians -- Fanghue He, Yue Sun, Leah Gastler, and Laura Hendrickson.

The second, Brian Nozny's Chess Pieces (2008), is an arrangement for percussion quintet of Cage's work by the same name that began life not as a piece of music, but as a painting, one created for the 1944 exhibition "The Imagery of Chess," organized by Max Ernst and Marcel Duchamp at the Julien Levy Gallery in NYC. As an art work, Chess Pieces is somewhat unremarkable: a 19" x 19" square painting in ink and gouache on Masonite, its 64 squares filled with music notation in Cage's hand in alternating black and white ink, its 22 systems reading sensibly from left to right. Despite its obvious relation to a musical score, albeit sans instrumentation, tempi, or dynamic indications, no documentation exists of its every having been "played".

In 2005, Chess Pieces went on public display for the first time in more than 60 years in an exhibition entitled "The Imagery of Chess Revisited", the brainchild of its curator, Larry List, at the Noguchi Museum in Long Island City, New York. Musing upon its "playability," the pianist Margaret Leng Tan was engaged by the John Cage Trust and C.F. Peters to try her hand at a transcription. Once completed, she promptly recorded it, first to be heard via headphones at the exhibition, and later for release by Mode Records as "Cage: The Works for Piano 7" (2006).

The performance heard here is by Nexus -- Bob Becker, Bill Cahn, Russell Hartenberger, and Garry Kvistad -- with special guest artist Jason Treuting (on loan from So Percussion), who kindly substituted for Robin Engelman.

I don't know about you, but I find nothing quite as sexy as a bunch of middle-aged men romping about on a stage making glorious noises...

And, for added fun, given that this concert took place on Halloween, the performers donned blue jeans for the occasion, a la John Cage, and at their final curtain call, took their bows wearing silly John Cage masks.

Cage in the Kitchen

2009-11-12T13:50:00.002-05:00

Anyone familiar with John Cage knows that late in life he became an avid macrobiotic cook. Some mourned the loss of his coq au vin and his creme brulee, reputed specialties from a decade before, but anyone lucky enough to experience just one of his impromptu macrobiotic lunches -- sans butter or flesh -- didn't complain for long!

The John Cage Trust takes the opportunities wherever they arise to spread his culinary gospel, so click here for a few words from Cage himself about the diet as well as a healthy sampling of his favorite recipes.

In 1997, at the 35th annual Belfast Festival at Queens, we were invited into the Festival House kitchen to prepare a macrobiotic feast for some 80 invited guests after a glorious performance of Ocean by the Merce Cunningham Dance Company. On the menu were Cage's hummus, red beans and hijiki-spotted rice, an arame-shitake stirfry, and, of course, the celebrated "John Cage Cookies."

This was also the occasion of the first installation of Cage's Roaratorio: An Irish Circus on Finnegans Wake, carefully (re)constructed from original recordings by Klaus Schoening and John David Fulleman. The work was reprised this past month in a beautiful new version by Bob Bielecki (with an able assist from Tom Mark) in the Chapel of the Holy Innocents at the John Cage at Bard College Symposium.

More recently, February 20-23, 2009, in one of its semi-annual contributions to the Merce Cunningham Dance Company's residencies at Dia:Beacon, the John Cage Trust transformed its little cafe into a macrobiotic eatery.

Dia:Beacon's staff was encouraged to contribute recipes of their own, and their Maple Pecan Cookies actually replaced Cage's for months afterwards as the Cunningham household favorite.

And this month, Barcelona's Bar Seco -- purveyor of "ethically-friendly, Italian-Spanish vegetarian dishes and tapas" -- is including a number of Cage-inspired edibles on its menu to celebrate "The Anarchy of Silence," a significant exhibition devoted to Cage's life and work at the nearby Museu d'Art Contemporani (MACBA), curated by Julia Robinson. For more on this, see Alex Ross's excellent blog, "Cage in Barcelona".

And, to close, here's a really recent "find" -- an important (and sweetly vigorous) missive written (slyly) by Cage for his partner Merce. This was discovered nestled inside a very dusty file folder, tucked safely behind a small wooden desk in the bedroom of their shared Manhattan loft.

If this isn't love, I don't know what is.

Laura Kuhn

About the John Cage Trust

2009-11-02T16:41:00.002-05:00

It's remarkable to me that after 16 years in existence, I continue to receive inquiries as to what the John Cage Trust actually is and does.

The John Cage Trust is a not-for-profit organization founded shortly after Cage's death to support and nurture his legacy. It functions in two interrelated ways -- as an administrative entity and as a physical archive, which, for a time was situated in New York City, in the historic "archive building" on Greenwich St., then was somewhat nomadic after losing its lease in 2001 (shortly after 9/11), and then, in 2007, went into residency at Bard College.

While the work involved in managing Cage's life and works consumes nearly half of my time, our physical archives are of greater interest to most. Our holdings are various, and include extensive print libraries (our own and Cage's personal, including cookbooks, collectively some 1,800+ items), photographs (some 1,000+), media collections, both audio and video (commercial and archival), text manuscripts (relating to Cage's writings), and a permanent art collection comprising some 80 works by Cage that are lent to museums and galleries around the world. We also maintain a copy of the John Cage Music Manuscript Collection, which, in its original, is housed at the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts. There's also a lot of what we loosely call "ephemera" -- childhood Christmas ornaments, appointment books, sets of piano preparations, old passports, etc. -- that is still, in a sense, being discovered.

And as we discover things, they become available. An image of Cage's transistor radio, for example, was recently used as stage decors for a performance of Cage's Radio Music and Variations IV, produced by Robert Worby as part of London's "Late at Tate Britain" program.

And both Cage's wristwatch and stopwatch were used this past weekend within the John Cage at Bard College Symposium, wherein Dwane Decker, resident biologist and watchsmith, delivered a fascinating talk entitled "Replicable Chance: Time as Structure in Aleatory Composition".

And we work closely and variously with our sibling repositories and business concerns, including the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, which houses the John Cage Music Manuscript Collection, Northwestern University, the repository of Cage's Correspondence Collection, Wesleyan University, home to a goodly amount of Cage's original text manuscripts, and C.F. Peters/Peters Edition, whose staffs in New York, London, and Frankfurt work tirelessly to see that Cage's compositions stay in the light of day.

And, speaking of Peters, they're close to releasing a new publication: the first in a series of performable text editions, John Cage's Indeterminacy: New Aspect of Form in Instrumental and Electronic Music, beautifully edited by Eddie Kohler.

To celebrate, Marina Rosenfeld and I performed this work this past weekend at the John Cage at Bard College Symposium, with Marina performing a beautiful remix of what are now-historic LPs of Cage's music.

Visitors from around the world visit the John Cage Trust for the purpose of conducting research (or just to partake of amiable, like-minded conversation). But those geographically remote may be happy to know that much of our holdings will soon be available as integrated, fully searchable databases at johncage.org. Thanks here to our glorious websters Larry Larson, Didier Garcia, and Jack Freudenheim, and also to Andre Chaudron, whose incredible efforts with his own John Cage website, served early on (and continues to serve) as a tremendous resource to our own. In the near future, both sites will merge, remaining for a time accessible via both addresses. In the interim, do visit johncage.org and help us to populate the John Cage Folksonomy, which is now up and running.

The John Cage Trust continually augments its holdings, sometimes quite by chance. We've become a repository for all manner of surprising things people have collected or discovered over the years, like the sizable amount of (very moldy) correspondence found under the floorboards of Cage's Stony Point home in the Gate Hill Co-Op, which includes letters from Peggy Guggenheim, George Brecht, Buckminster Fuller, and others. Or this wonderful recording of Cage playing his own Totem Ancestor at Ohio State University in a program he gave with Merce Cunningham in 1947.

Thanks to Karl Braun for this, who lovingly cared for this recording for over 60 years. Braun conducted an interview with both Cage and Cunningham in the setting as well, but, alas, that portion of the recording didn't really survive.

And in going through Merce Cunningham's effects recently, closing up the Manhattan loft he and Cage shared for some thirty years, we found this very sweet collage made by Xenia Cage for her long ex-husband, dated 25 June 1969.

This could go on and on, but for the moment, I'll stop. Check back later this week for a recap of our John Cage at Bard College Symposium, wherein I'll thank the many participants who made our first foray into our still-new academic environment a modest but resounding success.

Silence is Golden

2009-10-23T12:57:00.005-04:00

Few events have generated as much press around John Cage as the tussle that arose between Peters Edition, Cage's music publisher, and the British composer and songwriter Mike Batt, in the wake of the now infamous track on the first CD, Classical Graffiti, by Batt's 8-piece crossover band, The Planets, which went straight to #1 on the UK classical music chart on the day of its release (February 2002), where it remained for 3 months.

As Wikipedia tells it, "Batt was sued for copyright infringement over the track entitled A One Minute Silence, which...was credited to 'Batt/Cage'. The publishers of Cage's music alleged that the credit invoked Cage's silent piece, 4'33", and that the Trust was entitled to receive royalties. An out of court settlement was reached, with Batt paying a six-figure sum to the John Cage Trust."

Years later, I was contacted by Lewis Hyde, masterful author of The Gift: Imagination and the Erotic Life of Property (Random House, 1983), who contemplated addressing this altercation in a forthcoming book, Common as Air: Revolution, Art & Ownership (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, fall 2011), using as his basis an essay by Colorado humorist Randy Cassingham, author of True Stella Awards: Honoring Real Cases of Greedy Opportunists, Frivolous Lawsuits, and the Law Run Amok (Penguin, 2002), entitled "Silence is Golden -- for Some".

Intrigued, I sent Mr. Hyde on to the beloved general manager of Peters Edition, Nicholas Riddle, in London. Click here for excerpts from their ongoing dialogue.

And, for added fun, while we're on the subject, here's a little video of Cage's 4'33", performed in Palm Desert, California, by none other than Bill Marx, son of Harpo Marx and a marvelous pianist. This clip is drawn from one of the many documentaries made by the California filmmaker, Joel Hochberg.

Merce Cunningham

2009-10-13T22:34:00.003-04:00

For this first of what will be many John Cage Trust blogs, I’d like to thank Merce Cunningham (1919-2009). Not for his beautiful work, which has delighted us for decades the world over, or for his curious, open disposition. Not even for the example he set and shared of how to continue one’s work, in the face adversity, and for standing up for those close to him, always, in life’s most difficult times.

The front door to the loft shared by John and Merce

No, I really want to take this space to simply thank Merce for his generosity in making himself, and his home, a welcome place for those of us left behind with John Cage’s death in 1992. I can’t count the number of gatherings that have taken place over the past 17 years at Merce’s loft. Those rather grand events – annual Thanksgiving dinners, birthday celebrations, and glorious Christmases -- but maybe just as much the more intimate ones, with just Merce and me, or Merce and me and Mikel, or Margarete or Jasper or Trevor or Ralph or Victoria or Charlie or Joe or Andy or David or Larry or Bill or Jeannie or Robert or Pepper or Joan. That list goes on and on and on.

He opened his home to endless business dinners, when he understood that his presence and loft would serve our ends, and sometimes he’d just humor us, letting us do something slightly offbeat, even at the end of a long workday. Like when he allowed us to invite the loveable gang known as So Percussion over to “play” the loft, using many of Cage’s most unusual percussion instruments still scattered about. We recorded that one (thank you, Paul Labarbera), so can share a bit of it with you here.

Merce and I were not particularly close at the time of John Cage’s death, but we quickly became something like affectionate soldiers in arms. He continued his work with my help, and I mine with his. In the shaky aftermath of Cage’s death, we together formed the John Cage Trust, and he, as president of its board of trustees, tirelessly served his life-long partner to his own dying day.

Merce Cunningham

No one can replace Merce. But through his example, we continue, and happily so.

Please visit johncage.org, which launches today with some modest wares: the complete schedule of events for the upcoming “John Cage at Bard College Symposium” (Oct. 30 – Nov. 1, 2009), and the playful “John Cage Folksonomy”, a starter list of some 6,000 names of John Cage’s friends & acquaintances, to which you’re invited to contribute.

Laura Kuhn