YOU WON’T HEAR A THING! YOU’LL HEAR EVERYTHING!
June 15, 2024 | 2:00 - 8:39 p.m.
480 Arts | 480 Prior Ave N, Saint Paul
MUSICIRCUS IS EVERYONE HERE | JOIN IN
Instruction for participants from MUSICIRCUS, ca. April 1970 at Macalester College, courtesy of Walker Art Center
Tickets | Pre-Registration
Tickets are pay-what-you-can, recommended $25 for adults and $15 for students and children. The audience is welcome to come and go throughout the event. Tickets are available at the door, but we recommend pre-registering and RSVP’ing via Facebook.
COME AS YOUR ARE | STAY AS LONG AS YOU WANT
What to expect?
The score created by John Cage indicates that “this composition is nothing more than an invitation to any number of musicians willing to perform simultaneously anything or in any way they desire.”
The manuscript is a list of musicians for the first performance (Champaign-Urbana, IL, November 17, 1967) and includes a diagram for their positions in the performance space.
John Cage also organized a MUSICIRCUS event here in the Twin Cities presented by the Walker Art Center at the Macalester College Fieldhouse on April 11, 1970.
RenegadeEnsemble’s version of MUSICIRCUS expands upon the original idea with musical activities and games for all ages and abilities inspired by John Cage’s pioneering work with chance, noise, and open-eared listening..
This over six hour event will include simultaneous performances in multiple stages inside 480 Arts, 480 Prior Ave, Saint Paul.
Food and Beverage
Our MUSICIRCUS event will be catered by Butcher Salt, a food truck and bar service that will provide onsite food, snacks, and beverages. The food truck will be parked outside between 4:00 - 7:00 p.m. and will sell an assortment of sliders, sandwiches, and fries.
Bar service will begin at 2:00 p.m. with beer, wine, and seltzers and happy hour with spirits and cocktails begins at 4:00 until 7:30 p.m.
Musical Performances | Activities
John Cage and Karlheinz Stockhausen in a funhouse airplane, ca. 1958.
MUSICIRCUS Stages
(The Hangar)
The Hangar is the multi-chambered “heart” of MUSICIRCUS. Like the traditional “three-ring circus,” there are three stages with overlapping performances by various ensembles and musicians performing their own independent music. Audience seating nearby is flexible and the audience may wander through the space to listen more closely to any of the musical “acts.” Musicians might announce their pieces, play uninterrupted, or interact with the audience. Performers might also sing, act, improvise, or read poetry.
If you are interested in performing in The Hangar, please complete the Performer/Volunteer Form to reserve your timeslot. Most performances will be acoustic, but we do have the ability to support simple “plug-and-play” electronic instruments or setups if known in advance.
UPDATE: All timeslots are full!
But, there will be additional music stands available for extra musicians or audience members to create their own temporary stages in the space as needed.
Full Schedule
David Tudor and John Cage listening to a bell at Ryoanji Temple, ca. 1962
Listen | Dream
(Lobby)
A quiet place for reflection and contemplation, this room is very quiet and filled with books of poetry and artwork. The audience can whisper or talk quietly, but its main purpose is for reading, quiet listening, and dreaming. This room is an escape from the sensory overload of the other rooms.
Every 30-45 minutes, one of John Cage’s quieter pieces for piano and/or voices may be performed in full, or excerpted. After one of these performances, anyone in the room may also participate by whispering a spoken word piece, telling a story, or creating a found poem from the available texts. Between performances, the room returns to its quietude.
If you are interested in performing a work by John Cage that fits the criteria for the Listen | Dream Lobby, please indicate so by using the Performer/Volunteer Form.
UPDATE: All timeslots are full!
Please treat the donated books of poetry and music with respect and do not remove them from this room.
Full Schedule
John Cage playing a toy piano.
Piano Col-Lage | Cage Loon-Pail
(Studio 1)
This craft activity involves creating collage works for two pianos. Using the provided craft supplies (paper, scissors, markers, etc.), the audience is invited to create their musical collages and submit them for performance by the two pianists. There are bins of loose sheet music nearby that can be cut and pasted. Pianists will interpret the scores in any number of ways (e.g. upside down, rotating the pages, choosing to skip or repeat material). All submitted pages will be collected into a commemorative book from this year’s event.
Instructions
John Cage happily laughing.
Organ² / ASLSP
(Studio 1)
At the center of Studio 1 is a scaled-down version of Part 1 of John Cage’s Organ²/ASLSP for solo organ that spans the duration of the event (6 hours and 39 minutes). Organ attendants will change the pitches using a stopwatch according to a precise timetable calculated from Cage’s graphic score. There are 122 actions in total. There have been many performances of different durations of this infamous work but the most famous one, called the Halberstadt Event, was started on May 9, 2001 in Halberstadt, Germany and is scheduled to conclude after 639 years on September 4, 2640. The last action occurred earlier this year on February 5, 2024 and the next action is scheduled on August 5, 2026.
Instructions
John Cage listening to a snow globe.
4’33” Bingo
(The Hangar)
Near one end of the The Hangar opposite the three stages are several tables with objects and instruments that can be played by musicians and audience in an activity inspired by John Cage’s 4’33’”. Through a randomized drawing, the 33 instruments are to played in 4 durations (30”, 1'40", 2'23", 4'33"), including silent performance. A running clock showing the different timers will be available to aid performers. As the different combinations are used up, some instruments will fall silent and be replaced by new instruments over the course of the event.
Instructions
John Cage foraging for wild mushrooms.
Radio Foraging
(Various)
Inspired by John Cage’s tape and radio works such as Imaginary Landscape No. 4, Radio Music, Fontana Mix, and Williams Mix (among others), there will be over a dozen radios scattered throughout the venue that the audience is invited to retune according to their “secret bandwidths” on their ticket. This ephemeral landscape will be constantly evolving, like a forest floor filled with flowers and mushrooms.
Also included on each unique ticket is an excerpt from John Cage’s Diary: How to Improve the World (You Will Only Make Matters Worse) and instructions to read aloud or silently two haiku by Yosa Buson.