Southwest Chamber Music

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 FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE                                                             press@swmusic.org
March 16, 2012                                                                                              626.685.4455
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John Cage's "Lecture" Collects 12 Outspoken Men  

 

Los Angeles--On Saturday, March 24Grammy® Award-winning Southwest Chamber Music continues its survey of musical works by John Cage in Cage 2012, a festival honoring the centennial of Cage's birth.  

Henry David Thoreau

 

The concert at 8:0p.m. in Zipper Hall at The Colburn School, is a celebration of Henry David Thoreau, a major influence on Cage. The program consists of two works engaging Thoreau's words and drawings. Lecture on the Weather (with film) and Score (40 Drawings by Thoreau) & 23 parts: Twelve Haiku followed by a Recording of the Dawn at Stony Point, New York, August 6, 1974.

 

Performers include musicians of Southwest Chamber Music joined by a celebrity list of speakers, plus students from Hamilton High School Academy of MusicGrammy Signature School and winner of the 2010 Bravo Award for excellence in teaching the arts.  

 

 

The "outspoken men" in Lecture on the Weather include:
Terrence Roberts, psychologist, and original member of the Little Rock 9 which de-segregated Central High School in Little Rock in 1954 during the Civil Rights Movement;
E. Randol Schoenberg, board member and grandson of the composer, Arnold Schoenberg;
Michael Alexander, Executive Director of "Grand Performances" in Los Angeles;
John Schneider, host of KPFK's Global Village;
Thor Steingraber, Vice President of Programming for the Music Center;
Charles Dillingham, Interim Executive Director for the Pasadena Playhouse and former Managing Director of the Center Theater Group;
Bob Bruning, music teacher (technology, industry, production)at Hamilton Academy of Music;
David Spiro, tenor, and Development Manager for Southwest;
Jeff von der Schmidt, Southwest Chamber Music Artistic Director; and
Tom Peters, James Foschia, Peter Jacobson, Southwest musicians.

 

Lecture on the Weather was commissioned by the Canadian Broadcasting Company and composed in collaboration with a filmmaker and a recording engineer.  It is prefaced with an essay by Cage, read live, and followed by fragments of Thoreau's "Walden," his Journal, and "Lecture on Civil Disobediance," selected in chance operations.  It was to be performed, according to Cage, by 12 men, "preferably American men who have become Canadian citizens."

 
Score was composed by means of placing Thoreau drawings from his journal and other sources upon twelve lines of music staves which serve as graphic notation for the musicians. The drawings upon each staff are arranged in the 5-7-5 structure of a Haiku poem, and each line is a Haiku.  Finally, the musicians stop, and a tape of the dawn at Stony Point invites the world into the concert hall. 
 
"Being is the great explainer."

  

Cage 2012 takes place March 3 through March 24 at various locations in Los Angeles and Pasadena. Southwest Chamber Music has performed and recorded the music of John Cage consistently throughout it's twenty-five year history. In its Cage Festival alone, begun in 2010, it has performed 31 works, three of which have been repeated with different instrumentations.  

 

For information and ticket purchase visit the Southwest web site, swmusic.org or call 

(800) 726-7147. 

 Concert Information and Listing 

 

Southwest Chamber Music 25th Anniversary Season

 

Tickets: $38 general admission, $28 seniors over 65, and 

$10 students with full-time I.D.

 

For tickets or information: 1.800.726.7147 or www.swmusic.org  

 

John Cage color
John Cage

 

CAGE 2012

Saturday, March 24 at 8 p.m.

The Colburn School, Los Angeles 

Pre-concert talk at 7:30 p.m

 

Lecture on the Weather (with film)
Score (40 Drawings by Thoreau) & 23 Parts: Twelve Haiku followed by a      Recording of the Dawn at Stony Point, New York, August 6, 1974
With a cast of 12 speakers and 23 musicians

 

Cage 2012 is sponsored by the National Endowment for the Arts American Masters program, The Aaron Copland Fund for Music, and E. Randol and Pamela Schoenberg.

Location, Parking and Tickets
 
The Colburn School, 200 S. Grand Avenue, Los Angeles, CA 90012

 

Parking is available on the street and at Disney Hall parking garage.

Tickets

$38 General Admission, $28 Seniors over 65, and $10 Student Rush tickets (with full-time ID) are available on the day of the concert only.

  

For more information, 

or call 1-800-726-7147 
(please use this number in all published materials).
Performers
Huntington Group Photo compressed
Performers for Southwest Chamber Music's Cage 2012 include: Alison Bjorkedal, harp; Jim Foschia, clarinet;  Peter Jacobson, cello;  Tom Peters, double bass; Lynn Vartan, percussion; Shalini Vijayan, violin; Jeff von der Schmidt, conductor. 

For biographies on the performers, please visit www.swmusic.org/about_us/musicians.

Southwest Chamber Music

638 E. Colorado Blvd., Suite 201

Pasadena, CA 91101-2006

626.685.4455

press@swmusic.org

www.swmusic.org