Just in case you are not, as I am, a subscriber to Silence-l, the John Cage email discussion group, you will be amused to know that its members are currently discussing, with some seriousness, the feasibility of building a church or other some such memorial to the great man.
Awesome. That's all I have to say about that.
3 months ago
2 comments:
Once again, it takes a musicologist to get the facts wrong. The thread began with a sarcastic "why don't they go ahead and make a church of Cage already?" remark by composer Kraig Grady and I followed it up by noting N.O. Brown's serious reservations about Cage's tendency to collect disciples and mentioning that a church dedicated to a work of Cage, in the ORGANf/ASLSP project in Halberstadt has already been built. This project has been received with considerable criticism among those with connections to Cage or his work and, interestingly, that criticism has centered around musical issues (i.e. is the installation in Halberstadt a legitimate performance of the score?) rather than any churchly topics.
Daniel, I think I'll stand by my learned musicological observation that Cage people take themselves way too seriously. But I will indeed note that the amusing nature of the discussion was not the original sarcastic remark about a church, but the talmudic discussion which followed.
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