An alphabetical press release about 4'33"
1 - First off, I have to thank my wonderful dentist Bruce Milner for approaching Prana, with whom he sings, about performing the Cage piece this year. Thanks to Baird Hersey for his enthusiasm for having his group perform and special thanks to Cage biographer Kay Larson for speaking. I am really looking forward to it.
4'33" - Here's the piece, with a short introduction, being performed in England.
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A - The Wikipedia entry on anechoic chambers.
B - Berger, Karl. Performed 4'33" at the 60th anniversary performance in 2012 at WAAM. Winner of 6, count 'em! 6 Downbeat Critics Awards for his performing, Karl Berger is an award-winning composer/arranger whose scores for film and tv have won broad critical acclaim. He has written and recorded over 200 compositions and arrangements for classical ensembles, jazz groups, songwriters and performers, big bands, symphony and crossover projects. Read more about him at the bottom of this page or here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl_Berger
C - Creative Music Studio. Founded by Karl Berger, Ornette Coleman and Ingrid Sertso, John Cage was on the initial advisory council Read more about it here: http://www.CreativeMusicStudio.org/
D - Date and time and all that. August 29, 2014. Woodstock Artists Association Museum. Right in the middle of Woodstock, NY. 6:00pm sharp. Should be done by 6:45 (see the second entry for "P" for more information.) WAAM is at 28 Tinker St, Woodstock, NY 12498
(845) 679-2940 Free admission.
(845) 679-2940 Free admission.
E - Everything. And nothing. See here.
G - Gann. Kyle Gann. Who literally wrote the book on 4'33" and is hopefully going to come answer some questions after the performance. Wow. What a treat. (See "K")
G - Mimi Goese. Performed the piece in 2011 with Ben Neill. Killed. Here's her Wikipedia page, and here's a little blurb about her from her cd release press release: Goese is known as the lead singer/co-songwriter of Hugo Largo, the critically acclaimed minimalist punk/pop group who released two albums on Brian Eno’s Opal label in the ’80s. After touring with musician/producer Hector Zazou and co-writing/singing on the Moby album Everything is Wrong, Goese’s solo album Soak was released by Luaka Bop, David Byrne’s label.
H - Hersey, Baird Hersey. Read about this man's incredible musical career on his website here: http://bairdhersey.com/
I - Ink. A nice article in the Woodstock Times by Paul Smart on last year's performance of 4'33.
K - A really nice video about 4'33" with Kyle Gann:
K - Kay Larson. See Larson, Kay.
L - Larson, Kay. from her HuffPo bio: An acclaimed art critic, columnist, and editor, Kay Larson began her career in journalism in Cambridge, Massachusetts at The Real Paper, then served as an associate editor at Artnews and an art critic for the Village Voice. She was the art critic for New York Magazine for 14 years, and has been a frequent contributor toThe New York Times. In 1994, she entered Zen practice at a Buddhist monastery in upstate New York. We are thrilled that she's agreed to speak at the concert. Please scroll down to "W" to read about her new book on Cage or click here to read a wonderful recent article she wrote on Cage and Buddhism for the Huffington Post. Also, click here for an excerpt from her delightful biography about Cage, Where the Heart Beats: John Cage, Zen Buddhism, and the Inner Life of Artists.
L - A nice essay I found online by Larry J. Solomon about 4'33" can be read here.
M - Norm Magnusson. Producer. Impresario, artist, advertising curmudgeon, and founder of the art movement funism.
M - Paul McMahon. American artist and musician. Woodstock luminary. 2013 marked his debut performing 4'33". More on Paul can be read and listened to here.
M - Linda Mary Montano is a pioneer in performance art. Since the 1960’s, she has explored how artistic ritual, often staged as individual interactions or collaborative workshops, can be used to enhance a person's daily life, to create the opportunity for attentional spiritual energy states, to encourage inner silence and to alter the cessation of art/life boundaries. Montano's work can be viewed at www.lindamontano.com, as well on her blog and on YouTube. She will be accompanying Paul McMahon at 2013's performance.
Voted 'Best Performance Artist' by Chronogram magazine in 2000 for a career that spans decades, this 'famous' feminist performance artist's work has long explored themes of identity, endurance, and the sacred. She and McMahon began working together in 1986, not long after her year tied to another performance artist, Teh Ching Hsieh, with an eight foot length of rope. In 1986 she was in the second year of a seven year performance of the 7 chakras, or as she now refers to them; the glands. During that entire year she remained focused on the second chakra, wearing only orange and painting her walls orange, etc. In such a mystical and watery state of mind she was a natural to play a fortune teller in the lobby area of the Party Club at Franklin Furnace -a performance series produced by McMahon and Nancy Chunn over 2 weekends.
In 2008 she asked Paul McMahon if he would mind if she was 'him' and she soon appeared as Paul, in facial hair, cowboy hat and sunglasses, lip-synching to three hours of his recorded songs at an opening of his work at the Woodstock Mothership. Since then she has often appeared as his doppelganger at art and music gigs in a variety of venues; ashrams, nightclubs and art galleries. To find out more about Linda Montano the best thing to do is google her.
N - Ben Neill. Ben teaches 4'33" in one of his classes at Ramapo College in NJ. He has performed a number of Cage's pieces and has worked with him directly. Here is Ben's wikipedia page and here is a short blurb about him from the press release for his new cd, a collaboration with his co-performer Mimi Goese:
Neill is a composer, performer, producer, and inventor of the mutantrumpet, a hybrid electro-acoustic instrument. He has recorded eight CDs of his music on labels including Universal/Verve, Thirsty Ear, Astralwerks and Six Degrees. His most recent CD Night Science was released in 2009 on Thirsty Ear.
P - PRANA. Read more about this remarkable group on its website here: http://www.pranasound.com/
P - Program from the first performance of 4'33", which took place in Woodstock, NY, 1952, presented by the Woodstock Artist's Association.
P - The program for this performance: (to be updated soon)
R - Robert Rauschenberg, whose "White Painting (Three Panel)" (from the collection of SFMoMA) was a major influence on Cage's decision to compose 4'33" and perhaps on his decision to give his piece 3 movements.
S - Silence. A short video by Maestro Cage on this topic.
T- Tacet. Say no more.
T- Click here for: Traditional press release. (coming soon)
V- VanTieghen, David VanTieghem, musician and composer and the first guy I ever saw perform 4'33" We owe this all to him. Visit his website here: http://www.vantieghem.com/
V - A very informative smattering of reviews for Kyle Gann's book on 4'33" There's no such thing as silence.
W - Where the Heart Beats: John Cage, Zen Buddhism, and the Inner Life of Artists. A new book written by Kay Larson.
W - The Woodstock Artist's Association. You can find out more about this fine organization on their website,http://www.woodstockart.org/
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