![]() By exploring these otherwise unconventional percussive colors and timbres within a controlled musical structure, Cage creates a work that is endlessly inventive-yet surprisingly unified.Ĭomposed Improvisation for snare drum alone is similarly oxymoronic. Third Construction calls for four performers and a large assortment of exotic and unorthodox instruments, including a teponaxtle (Aztec log drum), quijadas (jawbone rattle), lion’s roar (a washtub with a small hole through which a rope is noisily pulled), and an assortment of cymbals, shakers, claves, tom-toms, and tin cans. The result was what Cage called a “micro/macrocosmic structure”: a musical form in which the grouping of units of time was the same on the small and the large scale. What makes your pieces unique? Cage composed Third Construction in 1941 during his time at Cornish. Through this work (and others in his Construction series), he sought to recreate the effects of tonality and harmonic progression upon traditional aspects of musical form-but using only non-pitched percussion instruments. Performing: John Cage’s Third Construction and Composed Improvisation for snare drum Like much of Cage’s work, the event erases the boundary between performers and audience members, beckoning even the most ordinary among us to run away and join the circus.Īnd so without further ado, allow me to introduce you to just a few of this weekend’s circus performers: Performers will be stationed all over Town Hall, with audience members encouraged to explore how the sonic and visual experience shifts as they wander freely throughout the circus, gawking at the oddities within. Woven in among the chaos are live performances of many of Cage’s best-known works, including the Sonatas and Interludes for prepared piano, In a Landscape for (unprepared) piano, Child of Tree for amplified cactus, Third Construction for unorthodox percussion instruments, Cartridge Music for amplified small sounds, 45’ For a Speaker for spoken voice, and other works of all styles and artistic disciplines. The John Cage Musicircus will feature over 40 musicians, dancers, performance artists, and poets performing pieces written (or inspired) by Cage and his explorations into the avant-garde. ![]() The score invites any number of performers to perform any number of pieces (musical or otherwise) simultaneously in the same place.Īnd this Saturday, Seattle-based percussionist and Musicircus ringmaster Melanie Voytovich has planned a multimedia presentation of this innovative work at Town Hall. Musicircus is more of a “happening” than a traditional classical music concert. Come one, come all for a most unusual evening of art, dance, music, and chaos.Ĭreated by the avant-garde and always-iconoclastic composer John Cage in 1967, the ![]() This Saturday, the circus is coming to town-the Musicircus, that is. ![]()
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