John Cage & the New World Symphony!

Dear all,

4'33" is Cage's most famous and still controversial work.  Composed in 1952 for any instrument (or any combination of instruments), the three-movement score instructs the player NOT to play a sound for the duration of the piece.  The first movement lasts 30'; the second 2'23", and the third 1'40".  The work, commonly referred to as "four thirty-three," consists of only the sounds of the performance environment.

From February 8-10, the New World Symphony will host a spectacular three-day festival dedicated to the music and ideas of John Cage, entitled Making the Right Choices: A John Cage Centennial Celebration.  You are invited to attend, and to add your creative genius to the event!

In addition to three evenings of concerts, NWS will host a video installation entitled NWS: 4'33", created by artist Mikel Rouse, which will consist of contributed video performances.  Record and submit your video, then visit the installation during the festival to see your work in the SunTrust Pavilion.  The selected videos will also be used in an online archive of the event, so your recorded contribution may become part of a lasting tribute to this defining and seminal artist.

Here's how to make and submit your contribution, which must be received by February 1, 2013:

*Create a video recording of your performance.  Adhere to Cage's original timings for each of the work's three movements -- 30", 2'23", and 1'40" -- keeping your performance as close to 4'33" as possible.  Please don't incorporate any sort of verbal introduction (it's not needed here!).

*Upload your video to YouTube.  Many of you will already have your own YouTube Channel, but, if not, here's a link to simple instructions:

How to Upload to YouTube

*Once your video is live on YouTube, go to the NWS: 4'33" YouTube site and click on the "Subscribe" button.  Your video will be screened and added to our Playlist.

*You're done!  Congratulations!

For those of you unfamiliar with (or skittish about) YouTube who would prefer to submit your video in another manner, please contact NWS433@gmail.com.

Notice: The submission of your video recording constitutes your legal permission to use it, without limitation, public recognition, or financial compensation, if, in fact, it is selected for us in the NWS: 4'33" video installation.  The NWS 4'33" video installation will be presented during the New World Symphony's upcoming festival and as part of an online presentation of the festival that will be developed for future viewing.

Laura Kuhn

Worth Repeating

SELFRIDGE'S NO-NOISE NEW YEAR'S RESOLUTION: SILENT, LOGO-FREE SHOPPING
Posted by Andrew Chan on January 2, 2013

Here's a retail concept that "No Logo" champion Naomi Klein might approve of — maybe. Britain's fabled Selfridges department store is ushering in the new year with a vow of silence. The "Best Department Store in the World" (according to last year's Global Department Store Summit in Paris) is rolling out a "No-Noise" concept to its flagship stores including London starting January 7th and running through the end of February. As part of the promotion, they're even convincing brands to strip their logos in an attempt to reduce visual noise for shoppers. Some of the "de-branded" items on offer include Levi's 501 jeans and the pricey Crème De La Mer face cream line.

According to Selfridges' blog post, "Some of the world’s most recognisable brands have taken the admirable step of removing their logos in our exclusive collection of de-branded products, available in the Quiet Shop." And it's not just about logo-free shopping (or shhopping, as the case may be), as there will be art and meditation, along with food and music, to clear the mind.

The iconic retailer's blog post continues: "We’re reintroducing our Silence Room – an idea first dreamed up in 1909 by Harry Gordon Selfridge" and curating "the best of minimalist design and teamed up with (mod meditation purveyor) Headspace and (returning lit wits) The Idler (hosting "Idle Sundays" throughout the event) to help you find balance in this fast-paced world."

To make sure these minimalist spaces serve as tranquil zones, customers will be asked to leave their cell phones and other digital disruptors at the door, along with their shoes. In return, Selfridges will offer "in-store meditation sessions and pods to deliver mindful messages and meditation practices." For added inspiration, "we will also be showcasing specially commissioned art installations in our windows and staging performances to nurture the imagination, including a performance of John Cage's 4'33" (silent composition)," which will take place on February 23rd.

According to Selfridges creative director Alannah Weston, the silent shopping space "invites customers to find a moment of peace in a world where we are bombarded by a cacophony of information and stimulation." And there will be food for thought, too, as the store is introducing No-Noise "special menus in restaurants (and) mini nutrition clinics, serving fresh juices and sampling organic and biodynamic wines. Don't forget to visit the WAGfree Pop-up bakery, which specialises in delicious wheat and gluten-free goodies."

Follow on Twitter at #nonoise — as you ponder (along with writer William Gibson) whether shoppers will pay a "premium for de-branded designer goods."

As for what Mr. Selfridge himself might think of all this, British TV viewers will get a chance to ponder that starting on Sunday, when ITV debuts its new original series about the department store's founder, starring American actor Jeremy Piven as Harry Gordon Selfridge.

Laura Kuhn

John Cage's Song Books

The first-ever complete recording of all of the Solos for Voices contained in John Cage's Song Books (1970) is now available, thanks to the incredible work of three individuals: Lore Lixenberg and Gregory Rose, vocalists, and Robert Worby, electronics.

Song Books is a collection of 90 Solos for Voice that Cage composed in 1970.  As a theme, he took a line from his diary: 'We connect Satie with Thoreau': Erik Satie being the iconoclastic French composer whom Cage greatly admired, and Henry David Thoreau being the American transcendentalist who lived alone in the woods on Walden Pond and wrote extensively about nature and his peculiarly American form of anarchy.

Any number of the Solos may be performed by any number of people, in any order, selected by chance if you like.  Songs and theatre and electronics mash up Fluxus-like food events, amplified board games, electroacoustic voices, 'animal heads', and intense feedback.  As Cage himself said of the work:

"...to consider the Song Books as a work of art is nearly impossible.  Who would dare?  It resembles a brothel, doesn't it?"

This beautiful 2CD digipack from Sub Rosa comes with a 24-page booklet that includes photos, excerpts from scores, and exclusive texts.  Fabulous, fabulous work, and a long overdue addition to John Cage recordings!


Laura Kuhn

1992 WBAI John Cage Memorial Tribute

Five days after the death of John Cage, on Aug. 17, 1992, the NY-based composer, writer, and lecturer Raphael Mostel produced and hosted a two-hour tribute broadcast on NY's radio station, WBAI-FM.  

As Mr. Mostel describes it, only a few of the many, many friends and associates of John Cage could be invited:  

In the WBAI studio with me were artist William Anastasi (at the time co-artistic advisor to the Merce Cunningham Dance Company), composer Earle Brown, Don Gillespie (who worked with Cage for decades at C.F. Peters, Cage’s publisher), R.I.P. Hayman (composer and a founder of EAR Magazine), Mark Swed (a music critic who is probably more knowledgeable about Cage than almost anyone else alive), and Margaret Leng Tan (a pianist who worked with Cage intensively, especially on annotating his works for prepared piano).  Speaking by telephone sequentially (WBAI only had a single line) were: Christian Wolff, Pauline Oliveros, and David Tudor. The engineer and in-line producer for WBAI was Peter Schmideg, who was the regular host of the station’s weekly program "Soundscapes: Explorations in Radio Sound & Music."

To read Mr. Mostel's essay and hear the broadcast in their entirety, click here.  One of the things that didn't make it into his essay is how David Tudor reacted in the broadcast.  He was obviously overcome with emotion, especially with mention of Cage's relationship to Morton Feldman.  As Mostel later reflected, Tudor may at the time have been under the influence of alcohol or medication, or both, but he (Mostel) was (understandably) loathe to curtail his poignant reverie.

New Music Box is a multimedia publication from the American Music Center, part of New Music USA, dedicated to the music of American composers and improvisers and their champions.  It offers in-depth profiles, articles, and discussions, as well as up-to-the-minute industry news and commentary, a direct portal to its Internet radio station, Counterstream, and access to an online library of more than 57,000 works by more than 6,000 composers.  It is currently featuring a total of five pieces reflecting on John Cage, each falling under the heading of Cage = 100.  In addition to Mostel's contribution, which is titled Walking Along Paths the Outcome of Which I Didn't Know..., are Kurt Gottschalk's Cage and Zen, Perspectives from Two Recent Books (Kay Larson and Rob Haskins), Isaac Schankler's Tudor and the Performance Practice of Concert for Piano and Orchestra, Kevin James' Provenance and Process--100 Waltzes for John Cage, and Petr Kotik's As Influential as Wagner, as Interpretable as Mozart.  

John Cage Obituary on KFPA Radio, August 12, 1992, Charles Amirkhanian is also available in streaming audio format as part of the Other Minds Audio Archive.  

Photo: John Cage (Frankfurt am Main, 1987) ©Anatol Kotte

Laura Kuhn

The Big Day of the Big Week

Happy 100th Birthday, John Cage!

And do we need a celebration?   We cannot avoid it, since each thing in life is continuously just that.

                                                ~John Cage 

It's the big day in the big week in the really big year for John Cage.  I want to take a moment before diving head first into this week's festivities here in New York to thank everyone the world over for their participation in what is proving to be an extraordinary international celebration. I want to thank John Cage, too, for more things than I can count.  What has kept me at the helm of the John Cage Trust for nearly 20 years is my interest in seeing what he'll do next.  What he does next, of course, being very much what we are all doing now.  

The John Cage Trust also celebrates today the launch of its long-awaited fully-searchable, integrated database of works at www.johncage.org.  Thank you to Larry Larson, our Webster Extraordinaire, and his talented team at Larson Associates, Jack Freudenheim and Didier Garcia. Who never, ever give up. And to Andre Chaudron as well, whose prescient www.johncage.info served as our able starting point. 

We are also proud to announce the release of two other labors of love:

Jack Freudenheim's beautiful Prepared Piano App, with a dazzling user interface by Didier Garcia that makes use of Cage's original preparations.






and

The John Cage Trust's own Sonatas and Interludes 3LP Audiophile Box Set, the inspiration of Tony Creamer, a great friend to both John Cage and Merce Cunningham, which features the superb work of pianist, Nurit Tilles, engineer Andreas Meyer, design/production team of Naomi Yang and Donna Wingate, and artist Chad Kleitsch.  

I'm proud to be working with each and every one of you, near and far.  I really can't wait to see what we accomplish together in the next 100 years.

Photograph of John Cage ©Sophie Baker 

Laura Kuhn

Gramophone's Top 10 Picks

The July issue of Gramophone Magazine focuses on the 2012 Proms, including a calendar of events that includes not one but two programs featuring works by John Cage: August 14 & 17.  The upcoming August issue (on newsstands Sept. 3, 2012) includes a nice piece by Philip Clark, inspired by his standing outside Cage's 18th St. apartment building in NYC and listening into the sounds that surrounded him. A web-only feature for this issue is James McCarthy's Top 10 John Cage recordings: "Ten Ways to Fall in Love with Cage."  Congratulations to Don Gillespie for grabbing the #9 spot with his video realization of Cage's 49 Waltzes for the Five Boroughs (1977) (Mode Records, The Complete John Cage Edition, Volume 40, Mode 204, 2008).


Laura Kuhn

Letters from Auckland

Leandra Augustin, Alsana Rahaman, and Judit Mathew

One of the great joys of working at the John Cage Trust is hearing from people from all around the world who are newly engaging with the work of John Cage.  The latest?  A spirited communication from Marcellin College in Auckland, New Zealand -- specifically the students of Room 19, a class of 29 8th-graders, under the happy tutelage of Barry Moffatt.  In the photo just above, they're holding their original "rock drawings," which were created simulating Cage's techniques for his "Ryoanji" drawings with a grid and 15 rocks whose positions were determined by chance operations.  Unlike Cage, however, they added their own little twist: a single highlighted rock, also selected by chance.

In addition to their "rock drawings," the students listened to recordings of Cage's music and watched films about his life (sending special thanks to Brian Brandt/Mode Records).  They also wrote mesostic poems using the 50% rule on the string JOHNCAGE.  The poems came neatly bound in a little book, and without exception are incredibly beautiful.  Here are two, selected at random:

                Juicy
        junk fOod makes
         you tHirsty
           eveN though
          you Could
              eAt differently
         but, Go out
          and Enjoy mushrooms!
(Judit Mathews & Leandra Augustin)

                                              Jumbled sentences that i
                                 struggle tO understand - i begin to
                                             tHink that his thoughts are
                                                                            somewhere iN neverland, trapped in his
                                                                                    own enClosure.  struggling to
                                                                                         escApe reality, to some, his
                                                                     poems are just a Gag.  but
                                                                                          othErs find them not too bad.
                                                                                                       (Trisha Villafania)

(Transcribing mesostic poetry into Blogger is an exercise in near futility.  I assure you theirs were letter perfect, if mine haven't fared so well!)

~

They also wrote me letters, all 29 of them, sharing a bit about themselves, their experiences with their projects, and finishing up with a few words about their overall impressions of John Cage:

"I enjoy reading through his history. One thing I know about him that he would never give up of what people say about him. I am really thankful that we were learning about him." (Trizhel Amon)

"I found that John Cage's art was interesting and kind of hard. I hope to learn more about Cage's beautiful and strange art." (Joseph Kalavi)

"I think that John Cage is an interesting guy because of how he looks at the world. I want to read more of his mesostic writings." (Ivan Evangelista)

"I think Cage was a very creative man. But what he called music: I found that quite weird. It sounded as if someone was screaming in my ear. The only music I liked of his was the prepared piano. It sounded very nice. I also enjoyed his mesostic poems and the way he painted." (Sharon Peterson)

"I find John Cage's work very interesting and I agree with him that all sounds in the world are music." (Isaac Rebello)

"I think that John Cage was an interesting man whose music is difficult to understand." (Nikko Eichler)

"If someone came up to me and asked me who John Cage was and what I thought of him, I would say that he was a poet and musician of sorts, some might say a chip off the old block. But I think he was a brand new block, different from anything else." (Benjamin Urquhart)

"The music sounded awful and it displeased my ears.  If I were a bit older I think I might have liked it." (Ivan Harris)

"We learned that John Cage was a determined man, and kept doing what he liked even though people rejected him." (Mary Aguilar)

"My personal opinion of John Cage is that to say he was a free spirit wasn't enough, he's a pioneer in the way he thought about art, and created a new medium of art.  I might not be the biggest fan of Cage, but I respect him as a person, and as a star."  (Aidan Samasoni-Tukuitonga)

~

Barry Moffatt, their teacher, is an equally interesting fellow.  Here he is outside Vesuvio's in San Francisco, a favorite travel destination.

Dr. Moffatt holds a PhD in philosophy, with additional degrees in science and art history.  When asked why, with so eminent qualifications, he chooses to teach young children, he points out that for a time Wittgenstein did as well.  He tells me he is both a poet (his poems described by others as "abstract and obscure") and a visual artist (his work in this arena "better received than his poems"). He is also an avid collector of Cage's works, both music and writings, and of secondary literature on Cage.

Hasley Stephens, Gadesvy Andrades, Joelle Moriah Reid, and Edgar Varona

Thank you one and all* for sharing your wonderful work.

*Mary Aguilar, Trizhel Amon, Gadesvy Andrades, Leandra Augustin, Van Joseph Belinario, Seadon D'Silva, Nikko Eichler, Cesar Estoconing, Elijah Etuali, Kim Louis (Ivan) Evangelista, Steven (Jan) Gamo, Jenney Guo, Ivan Marsich Harris, Harlem Ironside, Gabriel Johnson, Joseph Kalavi, Liam Koloamatangi, Judit Mathew, Sinafoni Mikaele, Brandon Peters, Sharon Peterson, Alsana Rahaman, Isaac Rebello, Joelle Moriah Reid, Aidan-Paulenele Samasoni-Tukuitonga, Hasley Stephens, Benjamin Urquhart, Edgar Varona, and Trisha Villafania.

Laura Kuhn