Happy Birthday Mr. Cage - A John Cage Birthday Concert
September 16, 2010
First Unitarian Church (4700 Grover Ave.)
$10, 7:30 PM
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John Cage (1912-1992) would probably chuckle at the towering and almost insurmountable figure he has become in postwar art and music. If one is a composer, instrumentalist, visual artist, involved in theatre or dance in a contemporary fashion, Cage's presence in all of these fields is either quietly or vocally acknowledged. However, as we approach what would have been his 98th birthday, very little of his work is actually heard, let alone appreciated or understood. For example, while he utilized the chance principles of the i-ching in his compositions, freeing the composer of didactic choice, he disavowed improvisation because of its stroking of the performer's ego, taste and preconception. His seminal composition, 4'33" (or four minutes and thirty three seconds), was a blank slate to allow un-predetermined sounds to enter into an outdoor performance space, much as texture and contour enter into the "monochromatic" white paintings of Robert Rauschenberg (a friend and influence). Ever anarchistic, Cage was as dogmatic and rigorous about removing the ego as other composers (like Karlheinz Stockhausen) were at emphasizing it. Of course, we like our artists to be complex and perhaps contradictory (witness the subtle romanticism of Cheap Imitation as Cage played it on the piano in 1975). In that sense, Cage can be one of the most quietly irascible of the modern pantheon.
On this occasion of his birthday, the Austin Chamber Music Center (featuring pianist Michelle Schumann, the Line Upon Line percussion ensemble and dancer Rosalyn Nansky) will present a variety of works from both early and late periods. These will include (but are not limited to) 4'33" as well as Cartridge Music (a 1960 piece for turntables, amplified objects and up to forty players), percussion music, and the suites for toy piano superimposed with fragments of Art is Either a Complaint or Do Something Else, one of Cage's more considered social-justice pieces (Cage was a proponent of collage and some pieces were meant to be played in conjunction or opposition to others). Cage's rarely played Number Pieces are represented by Three2 (for three players and three instruments), which like its 47 kin is rooted in combining indeterminate actions with determinate space and resources. While the full breadth of Cage's life and work is impossible to fit into such a short amount of time as one evening, we can look forward to a curious petri dish of Cage's music and situations Thursday evening at the First Unitarian Church.
