This post is the second in a series examining each night of the 2012 Avant Music Festival through program notes, thoughts, video, sound, &c.
Saturday, February 11, 4:00/5:30/8:00 PM – Cage, Unlocked: Celebrating John Cage at 100
- The Wild Project – 195 East 3rd Street Tickets On Sale Now – $12($8 students) discounted online presale
there are no fees for buying tickets online, tickets at the door will be $15($10)
The Avant Music Festival celebrates the 100th anniversary of John Cage’s birth with “Cage, Unlocked,” a marathon day of the composer’s music. Pianist Vicky Chow kicks off the marathon with Cage’s prepared piano masterpiece, Sonatas and Interludes (4PM) and the evening’s all-Cage program features Living Room Music, Concert for Piano and Orchestra, Ryoanji, Nocturne, and Four3 (8PM). With Loadbang, Vicky Chow, Drew Blumberg, Megan Schubert, and Randy Gibson.
The evening closes with a very special performance of Cage’s Four3 for 12 rainsticks, piano, silence, and sine wave as live musical accompaniment to the Merce Cunningham Dance film directed by Elliot Caplan, Beach Birds for Camera.
Today at 1PM Avant Music Festival curator Randy Gibson will join Olivia Giovetti on The New Canon on Q2 to discuss Cage and his lasting influence in an episode entitled, appropriately, Cage Match.
Listen and chat live here
We’ve just uploaded a little Preview video of the 2012 Avant Music Festival featuring Eve Beglarian, John Cage, Randy Gibson, and Jenny Olivia Johnson.
This video is part of the Kickstarter campaign that culminates in a live preview performance on December 19th.
February 12th, 2011, starting at 8PM at The Wild Project, NYC (195 East 3rd Street @ Avenue B)
The Cage program this year is perhaps the one I’m most proud of being able to put together. Megan and I have assembled what I hope will be a really fun night.
The concert will open with the lovely Vicky Chow performing Cage’s beautiful early piano pieces Dream and In A Landscape, and will close with William Lang and myself performing one of the last pieces Cage ever wrote, and a personal favorite, 1991′s stunningly minimal and sparse Two5.
In between will be a truly monumental musicircus performance of Cage’s exhaustive vocal/theatrical compendium; 1970′s Song Books as interpreted by the avant-garde vocal ensemble Ekmeles with Vicky Chow playing Music for Piano 4-19 and me reading from Indeterminacy.
The entire performance is being chance determined. The total duration of the performance was determined using the i-ching. Festival lighting designer Kryssy Wright is creating six “looks” for the lighting that will be chance-determined by audience members at the opening of the concert. I have used the i-ching to determine how many and which of the 90 stories from Indeterminacy will be read, and the positioning on stage of every single Solo for Voice has been chance-determined, and is not being revealed to the performers as a whole, only individually. Each performer will know where they need to go, but not what may, or may not, be going on around them. The members of Ekmeles have not discussed with each other which solos they are performing, and the ephemeral nature of these sorts of performances is extremely exciting.
When I put together a night of Cage’s music, something that was so inspirational to me early on, I try to read Cage’s instructions as carefully as possible, and follow them to their letter as closely as possible. Through the use of chance operations, and particularly this year, getting the audience involved in the determinations, we are able to really capture the anarchic, playful, but incredibly specific attitude that so typified Cage’s philosophy.
We are proud to announce the full schedule for the second annual Avant Music Festival, five nights of music from the evolving avant-garde, February 11th-19th at Wild Project in New York City. Curated by minimal composer and Avant Media artistic director, Randy Gibson and experimental vocalist Megan Schubert, the festival presents the works of Georges Aperghis, John Cage, Randy Gibson, Reiko Füting, and Nils Vigeland as interpreted by some of the most talented young musicians in New York. All performances will start at 8PM at Wild Project – 195 East 3rd Street.
The full list of performances is as follows:
Friday 2/11/2011 – The World Premiere of a new version of Randy Gibson’s Apparitions of The Four Pillars
Saturday 2/12/2011 – An evening of works by John Cage featuring Vicky Chow, Ekmeles, and William Lang
Thursday 2/17/2011 – Duets by Reiko Füting and Nils Vigeland
Friday 2/18/2011 – The New York Premiere of Georges Aperghis’ opera Sextuor: L’origine des Espèces
Saturday 2/19/2011 – Randy Gibson’s Apparitions of The Four Pillars
Advance tickets to individual concerts for $12, $8 for students, and multi-night festival passes are available starting today. There are no fees to buy online, and tickets at the door will be $15/$10, purchase advance tickets and save.
The second annual Avant Music Festival focuses on evolution as its guiding theme, from the evolution of a single work (the world premiere of a new version of Gibson’s Apparitions of The Four Pillars), evolution through an artist’s career on the John Cage night, to the literal exploration found in the New York premiere of Georges Aperghis’ opera Sextuor: L’origine des Espèces, based on Darwin’s “Origin of Species.” A roundpanel discussion moderated by Schubert between Gibson, Reiko Füting, and Nils Vigeland will take place at 5:30 PM on the evening of the 12th, in advance of the Cage performances. The discussion, free to the public, will discuss the concepts of artistic and personal evolution through composition. On the theme of this year’s festival, Randy Gibson says, “Standing on line for a packed concert downtown, Megan and I were talking about the festival, and where we wanted it to go. The idea of Evolution came to mind as it relates to all of the work we’re programming. It’s something I’m extremely interested in within my own work, and the theme of personal evolution is really strong throughout all the works and programs we’re presenting.” Click here for full details on this year’s lineup
We are pleased to announce the full lineup of works by John Cage being performed on February 20th during the Avant Music Festival. It should be a truly amazing evening of performances.
One4 for Solo Drummer will be performed by percussionist and experimental composer Jude Traxler to open the concert.
In a slight break with tradition, Randy Gibson has developed a version of One9 for specially tuned Toy Organ that mimics the sound of the original Shō – he will be joined by Jude Traxler on conch shells to perform Two3
Closing the concert will be a monumental performance of Songbooks with solos from the Concert for Piano and Orchestra performed by members of loadbang with Megan Schubert and presented with videos of Solo for Voice 19 by Randy Gibson and Ana Baer-Carrillo originally created for John Cage at 95 as well as i-Ching based video lighting created by Oscar Henriquez.
We hope you’ll be able to join us for this and all the wonderful events taking place at Wild Project as part of the Avant Music Festival
Avant Music Festival : Music of John Cage takes place at 8PM on Saturday February 20th at Wild Project, 195 East 3rd Street.
The Avant Music Festival will feature some of the most talented young interpreters in New York, highlighting the influence of the performer on experimental music from the 20th century and today.
The festival is Avant Media’s first festival of music exploring the nature of collaboration. The performer is a critical and powerful influence on both the composition and realization of some of the most influential music of the last 70 years. The performers appearing are dedicated to the vibrant history and the exciting future of modern classical music. Curated by Avant Media artistic director, Randy Gibson, and experimental vocalist Megan Schubert, the festival features works by Cage, Gibson, Stockhausen, and many more that reflect the intense and multi-faceted relationship between composer and performer.
I always love Bloomsday, and tend to forget that it’s coming. But each year that it does come around and I remember how profoundly and deeply I love this book.
It is truly the ultimate novel, something for everyone – brilliantly complex, engaging and gorgeous. Joyce had a profound influence on my work, mostly through the early (in my life) lens of John Cage’s utter devotion to Finnegan’s Wake.
