CONCERT
Hackett Hall Gallery
copyright The West Australian April 2012
The way John Cage explores sound has a playful
thoughtfulness about it. It reminds me of my fourteen month old son who covers his
ears with his sticky hands and listens to the suction as he takes them off. The
musical potential of everyday sounds was the focus of the second Cage tribute
concert in Tura’s Scale Variable series and involved performances by local and
international artists.
Berlin-based duo Werner Dafeldecker and Valerio Tricoli
presented Cage’s Williams Mix, an eight channel tape piece which in 1952 was
the first of its kind. Snippets of sound were relayed through eight surround-sound
speakers in rapid succession, sounding blurred as though heard underwater.
Cage’s six sound categories were city sounds, country sounds, electronic
sounds, manually produces sounds, wind produced sounds and small sounds.
Dafeldecker and Tricoli used the same categories to create Williams Mix
Extended, drawing on no less than 5000 sounds and extending the four minute
piece to 32 minutes. Their sounds were crisper and more industrial and the
higher quality audio production made the skin prickle and floor vibrate. But
after twenty minutes the sounds began to feel monotonous.
Cage’s popular 4’33” was a surround sound experience featuring
the ambient noise of the performance space ‘performed’ by Perth percussionist
Callum Moncrieff who stood behind a snare drum without touching it. Moncrieff
also performed Composed Improvisation for Snare Drum where chance was used to
determine all aspects of the performance. Story from Living Room Music had an
obvious beat and sounds were layered to create something more traditionally
recognisable as music. Not forgetting the source material for the entire piece
was the phrase “Once upon a time the world was round and you could go on it
around and around.” Moncrieff’s skilful delivery made the nonsense words
melodic and mesmerising; my 14 month old would have loved it.
The final Scale Variable concert is on Tuesday and features
the Etica ensemble performing works by Smalley, Ligeti and MacMillan.
ENDS
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