Four Silences: Music of John Cage

Few composers are more closely associated with the theme of this semester’s discussion series — silence —than John Cage (1912–1992). His investigations into experimental music, Eastern philosophy, New England transcendentalism and sound technologies led him to an understanding of silence as essential in his quest for the “all-sound music of the future.” Performed by USD Music faculty members Christopher Adler, Kristopher Apple, Ryan Nestor and Charissa Noble, along with students and guest artists, Four Silences: Music of John Cage explores the centrality of silence to Cage’s musical imagination. The concert highlights his “silent” pieces: the infamous 4’33”, 0’00” (“4’33” No. 2), and One3 = 4’33”(0’0”) + [G clef], as well as The Ten Thousand Things, a landmark of chance composition and icon of the mid-century avant-garde in which instruments, musical notation, form, method and the concept of the work itself are all subject to radical reinvention. These and other works invite listeners to hear silence not as absence, but as a rich field of possibility in which listening defines musical experience.