One of the most influential and controversial of all classically trained composers, John Cage, takes center stage tomorrow evening when Taipei's Forum Auditorium (十方樂集音樂劇場) showcases several of the late North American composer's works.
Dubbed the "father of indeterminism" -- a concept that sets out to rid choice from the artists creative process and was reportedly inspired by Zen Buddhism -- Cage was one of the first musicians to toy with the concepts of electronic music, creating the earliest forms of genres that are now known as noise and garage as well as touching on industrial music.
In the 1930s he composed the breakthrough Imaginary Landscape No. 1, a piece that saw Cage employing variable-speed records, or phonographs as LPs were then known, as well as recordings of frequency tones played alongside a muted piano and cymbals.
PHOTO COURTESY OF FORUM AUDITORIUM
While conservative classical music buffs were outraged by Cage's rudimentary form of electronica, it was to be his 1952 composition, 4'33 that really angered his many purist critics.
Lasting four minutes and 33 seconds, the piece was based on silence -- lots of silence, in fact, with the performers sitting on the stage next to their instruments playing nothing. In 1952, it was a performance of Cage's 4'33 at Black Mountain College that was to become famous as the first "happening" of the Beatnik generation.
Veering away from studio created noise in the 1960s, Cage began to experiment with the amplification of sounds generated by everyday household objects, the result being his much loathed, yet lauded, Cartridge Music.
While it was feedback loaded electronica that put Cage on the map, Saturday night's program is certainly not set to see the Forum Auditorium become a either a rave venue or the gathering place for members of the local noise scene.
Instead the Forum Auditorium will be putting on a program comprising several of Cage's less raucous, yet still perplexing and unusual compositions that go against the grain of traditional classical music. The program includes Second Construction, Third Construction, Amores, Living Room Music and Double Music.
An Evening of John Cage (John Cage擊樂之夜) will take place at 7:30pm tomorrow evening at Taipei's Forum Auditorium (十方樂集音樂劇場). The venue is located at 4, Lane 187, Mintsu W. Rd., (台北市民族西路187巷4號). Call (02) 2593-5811 for further information. Tickets cost NT$250 and are available on the door.
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