John Cage Reflections (sound excerpt)
October 11, 2012
John Cage Reflections (excerpt)
sound, 2012
excerpt duration: 3:15
duration of complete work: 33:44
This excerpt is taken from the broadcast premiere of John Cage Reflections on Sept. 22, 2012 at Wave Farm in Acra, NY as part of 120 Hours for John Cage, a John Cage centennial program organized by free103point9 and the John Cage Trust.
John Cage Reflections is a work that combines spoken word with a live performance of Cage’s Cartridge Music. An actor inspired by Cage’s speaking voice reads text adapted from a 1972 interview with Cage later published as “Reflections of a Progressive Composer on a Damaged Society.” David Galbraith and James Galbraith perform the Duet for Cymbal version of Cartridge Music. Since both the voice and electroacoustic parts were composed using the Cartridge Music chance procedures involving graphical shapes and transparencies with dots, circles, lines and a circle marked like a stop-watch, the parts will at times overlap and compete volume-wise. Cartridge Music was included in the David Tudor 39th birthday concert in 1965, and on the program for a John Cage 75th birthday public performance in New York. “Cage was the first composer (with his Cartridge Music of 1960) to realize the potential of an electronic music made live in the concert hall,” wrote Michael Nyman in his book Experimental Music: Cage and Beyond.