Tag: john cage

For the 1993 Venice Biennale, PS1 produced an exhibition of and about John Cage’s work calledIl Suono rapido delle cose. This week, WPS1 has added a webcast of the accompanying CD to their archive. The CD features performances by Lee Ranaldo, John Zorn, David Byrne, Joey Ramone, among many others, interspersed among Cage reading his own stuff. Definitely worth checking out. [warning: don’t expect any babies to sleep through Ranaldo’s jarring chords.]
Meanwhile, the Cageian embrace of randomness is alive and well on WPS1’s blogs [who knew?]. It seems there are 13 feeds-in-one, although not all have been kept up to date. Upbeat updates from one blogger’s happy Scandinavian/Los Angeleno curatorial collaboration called Civic Matters are interlaced with another blogger/dj’s virtual spitting on Rehnquist’s grave. It may be a perfect embodiment of the WTF-chaos that gives PS1 its edge.

[via Kultureflash] John Cage Uncaged is a weekend of performances, films and discussions (“and mushrooms!”) at Barbican Hall.
Cage symphony performances are rare enough to make them not-to-be-missed events. Highlights: Friday’s BBC Orchestra concert, “Cage in his American Context,” (which will include the first UK radio performance of Cage’s most famous work, 4’33”) and Saturday’s Musiccircus, a happening-within-a-happening which gets an annoyingly giddy description “Bassoons in the bars, flutes in the foyers and, who knows, you might even find a tuba in the toilet!”
You can buy tickets or a weekend pass, but for my money, I’m sticking to the radio. Here’s BBC3’s program schedule for Friday (that’s GMT, don’cha know):
19:25 John Cage Uncaged: Cage In His American context, Part One
20:20 Cage on Cage, interviews from the BBC Archives
20:40 John Cage Uncaged: Cage In His American context, Part Two
21:30 A discussion of Yasujiro Ozu’s Tokyo Story
22:00 John Cage Piano (including works by Feldman, Wolff, Schoenberg)
12/16 update: The Guardian collects Cage-related recollections and discussions by composers and artists, including Martin Creed’s very Cage-y “I want what I want to say to go without saying.”