Other Minds Festivals ➔ Other Minds Festival: OM 1: Panel on Legacy of John Cage (Nov. 6, 1993)
Digital Audio
Event Type
Lectures and Panel DiscussionsOrigin
Other MindsIdentifier
OMF.1993.11.06.2Program Series
Other Minds FestivalProgram Length
65 minDates
| broadcast| 1993-11-06 | created
Description
As part of the first Other Minds Festival (OM1), Charles Amirkhanian moderates a panel discussion on the Legacy of John Cage, held in San Francisco on November 6, 1993, just over a year after the legendary avant-garde composer’s death.The conversation begins with a reading of an excerpt of a letter written by Cage’s mother is which she compares his remarkable ethic with that of his own father,saying they were both like a tractor cutting through a field and bent on advising the world how to live well.
Julie Lazar, curator at the Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art then describes Cage’s last exhibition which featured one gallery that would change every day; a Zen gallery that was designed to provide a space where people would feel comfortable and which was in fact largely a reproduction of own loft; and one room in which a selection of objects, donated by a variety of people and businesses, that Cage displayed according to his own chance operations. Lazar also relates how Cage utilized chance operations in many of the decisions about how to organize the entire exhibit, sharply limiting her own curatorial duties.
Composer Robert Ashley admits his admiration of Cage for continuing to attend concert even as he grew older. Ashley also reminisces about Cage’s many performances that Ashley organized in Ann Arbor, MI, and Cage’s ability to provide interesting news about avant-garde performances and artists garnered from his many international trips. The panelists also discuss whether Cage’s music will continue to be performed as frequently after his death when he would no longer be in attendance, as well as the often poor quality of many performances of his works and Cage’s tendency to accept this fact without remonstration or apparent remorse.
Vocalist and composer Meredith Monk talks of how she has been inspired by Cage’s ability to separate himself from his work and how he was able to live in the moment and stay open to new experience right up until his death. While Barbara Monk Feldman, wife of Cage’s good friend Morton Feldman and a composer in her own right, says she continues to think about Cage’s work and particularly the way in which he handled the often tricky issues of silence and time in a uniquely innovative manner.
Sound sculptor Trimpin recalls his last conversation with Cage in which the two discussed the combination of music and visuals and the lesson that one must be very patient when working in a new format and how mistakes should not be interpreted as a failure but an opportunity to continue. A sentiment echoed by a favorite quote of Cage’s by Basque sculptor Jorge Oreiza relating how one should go “from failure to failure right up to the final victory."
Don Gillespie, who worked for Cage’s long term publisher C. F. Peters, agreed that the avant-garde composer was notable for his ability to live in the moment and how that compared with the demand of his own position as a music historian to so often reflect on the past.
Perhaps the clearest indication of Cage’s optimism and Buddhist tendency to be ever present comes from an incident right before his death in which his apartment was broken into and he was roughly manhandled. When asked later how he was doing after that his observation was that although the intruder did not know it he had adjusted his back for the better.
Note: This program includes about 10 minuets of questions and comments from the audience which unfortunately can not be heard although they can be inferred from the answers provided by the members of the panel.
Genres
New musicAvant-garde
Subjects
New musicAvant-garde (Music)
Acknowledgment
Digitized by the California Audiovisual Preservation Project (CAVPP) supported in part by the U.S. Institute of Museum and Library Services under the provisions of the Library Services and Technology Act, administered in California by the State Librarian.Related Event
Other Minds Festival 1Related place
San Francisco (Calif.) (was recorded at)Related Entities
Other Minds FestivalAmirkhanian, Charles
Lazar, Julie
Gillespie, Don C
Ashley, Robert, 1930-
Feldman, Barbara Monk, 1953-
Monk, Meredith
Trimpin, 1951-