John Cage's Bacchanale. A reconstruction for percussion ensemble.
(2017)
author(s): Gorka Catediano Andrade
published in: KC Research Portal
Name: Gorka Catediano Andrade
Main Subject: Classical Percussion
Research Supervisor: Karst de Jong
Title of Research: John Cage´s Bacchanale - A reconstruction for percussion ensemble
Research Question:
John Cage's piece Bacchanale (1940) was written for prepared piano. However, this was likely because of logistical restraints. Is there an instrumentation for percussion ensemble possible, and if so, how would it sound?
Summary of Results:
After researching about different prepared piano pieces by John Cage, we can realise that Bacchanale is the most suitable to be rewritten for percussion instruments due to its sonority and circumstances of composition. The piece was conceived for percussion instruments but there was not enough room in the theater to set up all these instruments. Therefore, Cage composed Bacchanale for a piano with different found objects placed into strings. For this research, a set of percussion instruments, similar to the ones that Cage´s ensemble had, imitates the prepared piano´s sonority. All the original sounds have been distributed in its corresponding drums and the composition has been transcribed to be played by four percussionists. During the presentation, both the reconstruction procedure and video recordings of the transcription will be shown to the audience. In this way, the audience will be able to understand why this piece can be perfectly played in a concert using percussion instruments, how can we came up with this result and what is its sonority.
Biography:
Gorka was born in 1992 in Miranda de Ebro (Spain), where he started his music studies. He continued developing his knowledge in the Conservatory of Vitoria- Gasteiz, “Jesús Guridi”. Later, he graduated from the Music Conservatory of the Basque Country (with prof. Javier Alonso, Lorenzo Ferrandiz, José Trigueros and Antonio Domingo). He is currently completing a master in percussion at Koninklijk Conservatorium (The Hague, The Netherlands) with Hans Zonderop, Theum van Niewburg, Pepe García, Niels Mefieste and Rob Verhagen. He has collaborated with many instrumental groups including Symphony Orchestra of The Basque Country, Bilbao Symphony Orchestra, Slagwerk Den Haag and AskoSchoenberg among others. He has also won prizes in different competitions, as the 2º prize in the Italy Percussion Competition in 2014 and he has played as soloist in prestigious festivals as “Quincena Musical Donostiarra”. Chamber music is an essential aspect in his professional career. He is part of IKKO percussion quartet and Trio ZUKAN (percussion, txistu and accordion). Both ensembles collaborate with several contemporary music composers.
Writing the Ephemeral. John Cage’s Lecture on Nothing as a Landmark in Media History
(2017)
author(s): Simon Aeberhard
published in: Journal of Sonic Studies
John Cage’s Lecture on Nothing is one of his early, legendarily forbidding speeches first held in 1950. The score of the lecture can be understood as a reaction to one of the most momentous cuts in twentieth century’s media history. Cage’s lecture overtly responds to the establishment of the electromagnetic recording, storing and distributing of acoustic material after World War II by reflecting on these technical developments. The text, however, also accurately and subtly reacts to the profound destabilization of the relationship between literacy and orality triggered by these inventions by applying new methods of writing.
Seen as such, the Lecture on Nothing can be connected to Cage’s electronic music on audiotape, Williams Mix for example, and his elaboration of 4’33”, which forms the basis of his “silent pieces.” What unifies these three contemporaneous, but essentially different, works is their thought-provoking semantic emptiness. This article argues that these works are best understood as an artist’s quest for an adequate semiotic means of writing an aural event after electroacoustic media have become widely accessible.
Mycological provisions
(2016)
author(s): Christopher Lee Kennedy
published in: Journal for Artistic Research
This exposition considers the use of mycology and chance operation as a method and material for arts-based research. The exposition details a series of mushroom hunting excursions designed to engage four artist-teachers in collaborative dialogue about their practice and identity. As participant and researcher converse, the hunts unfold as dérive-like encounters with a landscape interrupted through chance and embodied experience. The project draws from the work of artist and composer John Cage, who used fungi and mushroom hunting as one of many devices for exploring sound and its relationship to environment. Contextual research and documentation offer a glimpse into this process, while considering unstructured, kinetic, and uncertain ways of knowing in qualitative and arts-based research. The aim is to explore mycology as a post-formal lens for understanding the pedagogical and creative practices of the artist-teacher as a networked, fluid, and relational system.
Laborinth II : denken als experiment : 472 'meditaties' over de noodzaak van het creatief denken en experimenteren in het uitvoeren van complexe muziek van 1962 tot heden
(last edited: 2023)
author(s): Arne Deforce
connected to: Academy of Creative and Performing Arts
This exposition is in progress and its share status is: visible to all.
This research of Arne Deforce is only available in Dutch.
Boek I : Het hier voorliggende proefschrift Laborinth Π Boek II : De ‘Laborinth-art-box’, een speciaal op 15 exemplaren gemaakt collectors item, met daarin de boeken 1 en 3, de originele partituren van Brian Ferneyhoughs Time and Motion Study II, John Cages Etudes Boreales met begeleidende vingervellen met de publicatie van de vingerzettingen, werkverslagen, het citaten boek ‘De partituur van het denken’, drie cd’s met de integrale opname van de cellowerken van Giacinto Scelsi, Morton Feldman en Iannis Xenakis verschenen bij het label Aeon, een Laborinth Π-affiche, het programmaboekje van de Laborinth Π-cellomarathon. De ‘laborinth-art-box’ werd gemaakt naar een ontwerp van Arne Deforce in gepolierd plexiglas, 34 x 47, 6,5 cm. Boek III : De partituur met alle vingerzettingen en annotaties van het nieuwe werk Life-form voor cello en elektronica van Richard Barrett dat speciaal werd gecomponeerd voor de artistieke presentatie van het proefschrift. De artistieke presentatie bestaat uit: (1) de creatie van het nieuwe cellowerk Life-from van Richard Barrett in opdracht van het Concertgebouw Brugge, Centre Pousseur Liège, November Music s’Hertogenbosch, Akademie de Kunsten Universiteit Leiden. Première 10 november 2012, Festival November Music, Hervomde Kerk te s’Hertogenbosh, en 11 november Festival Surround, Concertgebouw Brugge. (2) een cello marathon van drie concerten op één dag met werken van James Dillon, John Cage, Jonathan Harvey, Raphael Cendo, Iannis Xenakis, Helmut Lachenmann, Iannis Xenakis, Richard Barrett. 12 november Kees Vanbaarenzaal, Conservatorium Den Haag.