Scholarly discussion of the music of John Cage.

[CAGE <>]

Dear silence subscribers

 

We are so pleased to be able to inform you of the launch of cageconcert. https://cageconcert.org/

 

cageconcert is a website plus two web-based apps that allow users to explore John Cage’s Concert for Piano and Orchestra in extraordinary and unique detail. Featuring interviews, films, performances, text and images, the website is a great resource to explore not just the ‘Concert’ itself but also issues relating to instrumental technique, notation and performing Cage’s music more widely. Featuring interviews with members of Apartment House, as well as drawing upon discussions with other musicians, this is a comprehensive and fascinating study of the challenges and joys of performing Cage.

 

The Solo for Piano App is a detailed examination of the solo piano part, Cage’s extensive 63-page graphic score. The app allows users to select notations and generate randomised and manually selected realisations. Each notation comes with information about the notation and how to interact with it through the app. Use it to explore Cage’s notations, create realisations for performance, save and print realisations. Switch between analysis mode and performance mode to view the realisation in different ways and for different purposes. The Solo for Piano App is a work-in-progress, with new notations and developments being created over coming months. The Solo for Piano app was developed by Dr Christopher Melen.

 

The Concert Player app allows users to generate randomised and tailored performances of the Concert for Piano and Orchestra. Using sounds recorded by the members of Apartment House, each performance reflects the space time notations of the parts according to the total duration selected by the user. Select instruments, pages, silences, durations, and sequences to hear the Concert in ever varying combinations. The app also allows users to hear, for the first time, the ‘complete’ Solo for Piano, from beginning to end, in a specially recorded version made by Philip Thomas lasting 3 hours and 9 minutes. (This will be available as a free download on the website soon.) The Concert Player app was developed by Stuart Mellor.

 

The website and apps are the result of a three-year AHRC-funded project, which has also resulted in a book co-authored by Martin Iddon and Philip Thomas, to be published by OUP in May 2020, and the recording ‘CC’, featuring Philip Thomas and Apartment House, released in 2017 by Huddersfield Contemporary Records.

 

Tune in to BBC Radio 3’s ‘Music Matters’ this Saturday, available on BBC Sounds for the next month, to hear Philip Thomas and Emily Payne discuss the project.

 

We hope you enjoy exploring these resources as much as we’ve enjoyed exploring Cage’s rich, complex, wild, multilayered and generous music.

We’d love to hear your feedback on the project. Please do send us any comments and queries to

 

Philip, Martin, Emily and Chris.

 

https://cageconcert.org/

University of Huddersfield

Queensgate, Huddersfield HD1 3DH

Tel: 01484 471336

 

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Attachment: Launch of Cageconcert press release final 18.11.19.pdf
Description: Launch of Cageconcert press release final 18.11.19.pdf