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Lecture on the Weather

John Cage at Hallwalls in 1987. This photo is by Irene Haupt, whose work is on display at the Burchfield-Penney as part of a 23-day tribute to Cage.

The politics of John Cage, whose work is being celebrated over 23 days at the Burchfield-Penney Art Center

Everybody talks about the weather, even John Cage. But what John Cage is talking about when he is talking about the weather is a good question.

THE WEEK IN CAGE

Thursday, February 4

12:15pm: Second Construction (1940), Branches (1976), Credo in US (1942) by John Cage, performed by BSC Percussion Ensemble.

2:30pm: Rozart Mix (1965) by John Cage, realized and performed by J.T. Rinker.

3:38pm: Framing the Silence (2006) by Michael Colquhoun, performed on flute by Michael Colquhoun.

3:52pm: Framing the Silence (2006) by Michael Colquhoun, performed on flute by Michael Colquhoun.

4:32pm: Framing the Silence (2006) by Michael Colquhoun, performed on flute by Michael Colquhoun.

5:05pm: Terra/Cysts (2009) by Kyle Price/Brian Milbrand, performed by Kyle Price, Brian Milbrand and Pam Swarts.

6:07pm: The (Electronic) Playground (2007), composed and performed by John Bacon.

7pm: Lecture on the Weather (1975) by John Cage, performed by Jan Williams, Diane Williams, John Bacon, J.T. Rinker, Brad Fuster, Michael Basinski, Michael Colquhoun, Andrew Deutsch, Alan Kryszak, Michael Miskuly, Peter Ramos and David Lampe.

Friday, February 5

11:46am: Sixty-Two Mesostics RE Merce Cunningham (1971) by John Cage, performed by Don Metz.

2pm: One11 with 103, a film without subject by John Cage, produced and directed by Henning Lohner.

Saturday, February 6

12:38pm: Sixty-Two Mesostics RE Merce Cunningham (1971) by John Cage, performed by Don Metz.

1:34pm: Performance by Bufffluxus.

2pm: One11 with 103, a film without subject by John Cage, produced and directed by Henning Lohner.

Sunday, February 7

2:15pm: Rozart Mix (1965) by John Cage, realized and performed by J.T. Rinker.

3:15pm: Fontana Mix (1963) by John Cage, realized and performed by William Sack.

3:54 pm: Fontana Mix (1963) by John Cage, realized and performed by William Sack.

Tuesday, February 9

12:15pm: Second Construction (1940), Branches (1976), Credo in US (1942) by John Cage, performed by BSC Percussion Ensemble.

Wednesday, February 10

2:36pm: In the Spirit of Cage: Prepared Poem Prompts (2009), composed and performed by David Lampe.

For more information on individual performances and performers, as well as for next weekend’s schedule, visit www.yournewburchfieldpenney.com

The Burchfield-Penney Art Center is currently celebrating the multifariously provocative composer, conceptual artist, and philosopher John Cage with performances of a wide array of his works and works of others inspired by his work.

Lecture on the Weather is the feature Cage work on the program. It is an audio-visual extravaganza for a lineup of readers who occasionally double as musicians—including some traditional-type musicians playing recognizable orchestral instruments, but “sound-effects guys” might be a more accurate characterization overall.

The readings are from Henry David Thoreau, but the effect is more Thoreau atmospherics than linear and articulated exposition of his prose, given that different passages are read by different readers simultaneously, with simultaneous non-verbal effects added in seemingly at the will of the individual performers. Eventually, weather sounds—rain, storm, chaos in the skies—are melded into the audio-visual turmoil.

Why weather? Why that particular topic? Lecture on the Weather, from 1975, is a distinctly political piece. It was commissioned by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation in recognition of the American Bicentennial, and Cage wanted it performed by 12 expatriate Americans living in Canada to avoid service in the Vietnam War.

So, Weathermen, one thinks. But surely weather in a more substantial sense than just reference to some fringe and flaky political group.

Art has always been about control. Controlled effects. John Cage is the guru of uncontrol. Of the vanity and folly of control. Of the violence of control.

The political message was that what the Vietnam War came down to was America trying to control the rest of the world. And if Cage were around today--he died in 1992--no doubt he would have similar thoughts about the Iraq and Afghanistan adventures.

Weather is one of those things that is out of our control. Weather is nature. Thus, the relevance to the lecture of Thoreau, our pre-eminent nature writer. Who wrote about living in nature and sojourning in it, in Walden and in his Journal and other writings. But also wrote a famous Essay on Civil Disobedience. Thoreau’s civil disobedience was inspired by his opposition to slavery but also to the Mexican War.

And when the storm sounds commence and gradually build to a fury pitch, you can’t help thinking of King Lear on the heath, and the purgational aspect of weather, as Shakespeare conceived it. Cage had an extremely dim view of the national political agenda in the 1970s, but continued to claim he was an optimist.

The principle he fought to establish for the arts was chance, the aleatory, as in a roll of the dice. In Lecture on the Weather, he transformed artistic principle into political message. Or really, anti-artistic principle, until Cage proposed it as artistic. Since art was previously about control.

A kind of art critical truism has always been that art imitates nature. But it was Cage who made art that imitated nature. Previously—from forever—art really imitated art.

Lecture on the Weather is preceded by a Preface, which is read linearly and without competing sound effects. In the Preface, Cage notes that the passages from Thoreau were selected by means of I Ching chance operations.

He explains that such chance operations are not to be considered some mysterious means of obtaining “right answers,” but a means of “silencing the ego, so that the rest of the world has a chance to enter into the ego’s own experience.”

He criticizes the vision of the United States as the world’s policeman. “We would do well,” he says, “to give up the notion that we alone can keep the world in line, that only we can solve its problems.”

On the seminal value of Thoreau, he notes in the Preface that he had written a few years previously that “reading Thoreau’s Journal, I discovered any idea I’ve ever had worth its salt.”

Lecture on the Weather will be performed again Saturday, February 13. A complete program of performances and events, running to over 30 pages, is at www.yournewburchfieldpenney.com. Among other works by Cage are music for percussion and piano and “amplified plants,” by the Buffalo State College Percussion Ensemble, and Sixty-Two Mesostics, by guitarist and Burchfield-Penney Associate Director Don Metz.

Among works inspired by Cage are Ron Ehmke’s 60 Stories, Retold, and Michael Colquhoun’s minimalist flute composition called Framing the Silence.

On display are photos of Cage by Irene Haupt, from some of the numerous times he visited and performed in Buffalo from the 1960s on, under auspices of such arts projects and organizations as June in Buffalo, Evenings for New Music at the Albright-Knox Art Gallery, the S.E.M. Ensemble, and the North American New Music Festival.

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