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Happy Birthday Mr. Cage

Presented by Austin Chamber Music Center at First Unitarian Universalist Church of Austin

September 4, 2009

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The Austin American-Statesman commented that "the late avant-garde composer John Cage couldn't have had a better birthday homage thanks to MICHELLE SCHUMANN...;" and critic Jeanne Claire Van Ryzin has named the celebration concert as one of the top three arts events in Austin in years past. Now, for one performance only, FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 4 at 7:30 PM, at the First Unitarian Universalist Church, Schumann will present an encore presentation of one of her most celebrated performance pieces, the Sonatas and Interludes for Prepared Piano, to celebrate Cage's 97th.

WHAT: Ninth Annual Happy Birthday Mr. Cage
WHEN: Friday, September 4 at 7:30 p.m.
WHERE: First Unitarian Universalist Church, 4700 Grover Avenue
COST: $10 per person
PROGRAM: Sonatas and Interludes for Prepared Piano

In this year's installment, Schumann will relive the complete Sonatas and Interludes, Cage's most ambitious set of works for prepared piano. Schumann's preparation of the piano is accomplished by following a complex set of Cage's instructions in which screws, bolts, rubber, wood, weather striping, pencil erasers, and various other found objects are inserted into the piano at prescribed points along the strings. When played, the piano becomes both tonally and rhythmically unique. It is at once aggressively percussive and subtly melodic - a piano made of drums and bells, sounding both rattles and rings.

Through the Sonatas and Interludes, Cage sought out to exemplify the emotional impact that music had on the mind. His muse was the "Indian Theory of Nine Permanent Emotions" and Cage used the twenty four movements of the piece to explore various emotions including Black Emotions such as fear, anger, sorrow, disgust; and White Emotions such as heroicism, eroticism, mirth, and wonder. All emotions ultimately culminate in the ultimate state of tranquility. The Sonatas and Interludes carry the trajectory of emotional thought throughout and resonate a powerful and human spirit. Soon after writing this work in 1946, Cage began to discover that perhaps music's most important purpose was not to engage the emotions, but rather "to quiet and sober the mind." Thus, the Sonatas and Interludes remain an important and rare insight into Cage's compositional thought process as an'emotional' composer.