John Cage, best known for a silence of four minutes and 33 seconds, was born 100 years ago, and Fear No Music commemorated his centennial Friday night with a joyously sound-filled event that was a major milestone for both the ensemble and the venue, Southeast Portland?s fledgling YU art space.
An audacious and brilliantly conceived undertaking by Paloma Griffin, who assumed FNM?s artistic leadership last spring, ?100 Years of John Cage? was a cornucopia of delights spanning more than four decades of Cage?s career over nearly four hours in the vast space.
Upstairs, Oregon Symphony music director Carlos Kalmar read Cage?s ?Lecture on Nothing,? extending it to Mahlerian length with measured delivery and attenuated pauses. Meanwhile, a recording of ?Muoyce,? (Cage?s tribute to James Joyce, incorporating reassembled portions of Finnegans Wake) played in the kitchen; Robert Ainsley and Kevin Walsh intoned the call-and-response ?Litany for the Whale? across the frigid garage; and other performers wielded conch shells and water in ?Inlets.?
FNM co-founder Jeff Payne played prepared piano (that is, piano outfitted with tone-changing materials) in ?Credo in Us,? accompanied by percussion and recorded music of other composers, and in ?Music for Marcel Duchamp;? in ?Fourteen,? with his FNM colleagues and members of the Portland State University New Music Ensemble, he bowed the piano strings with fishing line.
Later came the pi?ce de r?sistance, ?Postcard from Heaven;? a celestial cacophony of improvisatory ragas by over dozen harpists, and the evening ended with the silent ?4?33?? before a rapt crowd. The infamous piece invites listeners to find music in ambient sound while the performers remain silent; Friday night, the ingredients included footsteps, a quietly chatting couple and the susurrus of passing cars.
Appropriately, concertgoing convention was cast aside, and the event was as much a gallery show and happening as it was a concert. The large crowd roamed around the space, taking in pieces sometimes simultaneously. The approach worked brilliantly for ?Apartment House,? which involved soloists and small ensembles distributed around the space, but some of the music might have benefitted from a less chaotic environment. Hubbub erupted as Kalmar finished ?Lecture on Nothing? during the meditative ?Fourteen,? precipitating urgent shushing (which seemed heretical, frankly; WWJCD?).
Mostly, though, the random, busy atmosphere was just right ? as Cage taught, it was from such lively chaos that music can be made, even in seeming silence. ?100 Years of John Cage? was possibly the most exciting show that FNM has ever done, and it is to be hoped that we needn?t wait another century before we can experience something like it again.
Source: http://www.oregonlive.com/performance/index.ssf/2012/02/fear_no_music_review_an_audaci.html
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