John Cage on October 26th

Tune in Saturday, October 26, 2PM to 4PM (CT) for Composer Talk with your hosts Hsin-Jung Tsai and Chris Becker.

On this edition of “Composer Talk” we will be playing John Cage’s “Litany for the Whale” as well as tracks from the Imani Winds’ album “Terra Incognita,” including Jason Moran’s “Cane” and Wayne Shorter’s epic “Terra Incognita.”

John Cage has been influential in contemporary music, sound art, fine arts, and so many other medias.  Litany for the Whale is a collection of vocal works, composed by John Cage, performed by the Theatre of Voices, and directed by Paul Hillier, with guest performer/composer Terry Riley.

John Cage’s vocal music helped free the voice from strictly narrative– and strictly tonal–roles.   This Cage’s vocal works brilliantly shows the full range of  shapes the composer wanted for musical voice.  The title piece is the most recent  and relies heavily on two voices shifting pitches in a rich, polyphony-tinged  flow. So much here is vital Cage: from his adaptation of phrases from Finnegan’s  Wake to Riley reading the “36 Mesostics re and not re Marcel Duchamp,” to  the outlandish, electronics-infused Aria originally written for Kathy  Berberian. Paul Hillier performs these works with his Theatre of Voices  ensemble, drawing richly on their early music chops and textural acuity. ” — Andrew Bartlett

“Composer Talk” streams live at http://www.ktru.org and in high definition at 90.1 HD-2.