Song Books by John Cage

Event information

'Song Books' by John Cage

7.30pm 11th March 2012 at Cafe Oto
18 - 22 Ashwin street, Dalston
London, E8 3DL

Scratch Orchestra members disembowel Cage's magnum opus with a sharp younger generation of performers.

Description of score: This is one of Cage's most ambitious works. It comprises over 48 actual songs and 42 instructions for 'theatre' (Fluxus-like 'actions' for the most part) which are performed at random start times within a set period. The scores are very diverse and cover almost every approach to experimenting with notation that Cage used: from conventional music to the most abstract. The libretto is also very varied and covers most of Cage's interests from mushrooms to anarchy. Each 'song' is designated to be either with or without electronics. Each one is also to be cognisant of 'the space between Satie and Thoreau' or not, which I think defines Cage's notion of the avant garde in a nutshell.

Intention of project: This is to raise the question of the place of visual performance within experimental musics. The older core performers were in the Scratch Orchestra which was deeply imbued with a visual dimension going back to Cardew's earlier composition 'Treatise' and brought to the fore in Scratch performances by the activities of the Slippery Merchants.
It is also an attempt to bring Scratch experience into a critical collision with a contemporaneous John Cage in collaboration with a younger generation of performers and composers.

John Tilbury: "Cage achieved mythical status but Cardew was a legend".

Performers will include:

Stefan Szczelkun;
Peter Ellison
Carole Finer
Linn D,
John Tilbury (all above ex Scratch Orchestra)

Eve Libertine,

Geri McEwan

Ali Warner,

Renate Biruls,

Portia Winters with Tom Mudd (electronics)

Robbie Lockwood

Lucy Galland

Jane Alden from USA

Mimi

Electronics by: Grundik Kasyansky


Seed funded by University of Westminster, IMCC.