Live @ MOCA 12.01.12

Here's the audio from my three sets at the John Cage Musicircus held at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Cleveland on December 1, 2012. There were 24 acts playing different parts of the building at different times, overlapping as you moved from area to area within the many floors of the beautiful new building.

MOCA Cleveland issued a call for musicians located in Northeast Ohio (and beyond) to participate in a Musicircus in their new building, scheduled for Saturday, December 1, 2012, from 1 - 4 pm. This event celebrates MOCA Cleveland’s move to University Circle as well as the centenary of composer John Cage’s birth (Cage was born on September 5, 1912).

Musicircus is a concept developed by John Cage. According to his original notes for his first musicircus, Cage states “The idea of this composition is nothing more than an invitation to a number of musicians, who perform simultaneously anything or in any way they desire.”

All performers are treated with equal weight and importance. The length of each musician’s or ensemble’s set, along with their order of presentation, is predetermined in advance by utilizing chance procedures from the I Ching.

Performers will be stationed in as many spots in MOCA's new building as possible, to evoke the “simultaneity of unrelated intentions” which Cage sought when he conceived of this framework. Audience members are free to roam and focus their attention on one musician or ensemble at a time, but they won’t be able to escape the tapestry of sounds which permeates a musicircus.