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John Cage's Empty Words
From: Joseph Celli (josephcelli99@gmail.com)
This Friday evening a 12 hour streamed performance
of John Cage's Empty Words from Wesleyan University,
Connecticut
stay up & drink some coffee! We did the complete
American Premiere in 1981 in Hartford as well as
25 NPR stations.
WHAT'S
IN MIND IS TO STAY UP ALL NIGHT READING
From
the evening of April 30 into the morning of May 1, Stuart Wheeler will perform
John Cage's 12-hour overnight piece Empty Words. Cage composed this in the
1970s by fragmenting and collaging language from Henry David Thoreau's 14
volumes of journals. The piece is divided into four sections, each two and a
half hours long with 30-minute intermissions. It begins with a variety of large
and small units of language (phrases, words, syllables and letters) and
steadily removes the larger units until the final section (timed to begin
precisely at dawn) where only single letters and silences remain. Cage thought
of this as "a transition from language to music."
The
performance will take place over Zoom; all times are in Eastern Standard
Time. It's a slumber party, so you're encouraged to put it on, stay up as late
as you want, take a nap, go to sleep, wake up. At dawn, open your windows and
doors to let in the sounds from the outside world.
Pre-concert
talk by Stuart Wheeler on Thursday April 29 at 4:30 PM
Performance
of Empty Words from Friday April 30 at 8:17 PM to Saturday
May 1 at 7:47 AM
https://wesleyan.zoom.us/j/97102229418