"All Things Cage" is a weekly program featuring conversations between Laura Kuhn, Director of the John Cage Trust, and Cage experts and enthusiasts from around the world. If youd like to propose a guest or a topic for a future program, write directly to Laura at lkuhn@johncage.org.Laura Kuhn presents the first recording of John Cages Europera 5, preceded by her reading Recollections of the Premiere Performance by Yvar Mikhashoff. This recording of Europera 5 was produced by Brian Brandt and released on the Mode Records label as Mode 36 in 1995, with performers Yvar Mikhashoff, Martha Herr, Gary Burgess, Jan Williams, and Don Metz. Europera 5 is the last and most diminutive of Cages operas " preceded by Europeras 1 & 2 (1984-1987) and Europeras 3 & 4 (1991) " and was instigated by pianist Yvar Mikashoffs desire for a small, more practical and portable, and more easily performed work in the series, which had its premiere in Buffalo at the North American New Musical Festival on April 12, 1991.
Laura Kuhn talks once again with Trevor Carlson, who she first met shortly after he joined the ranks of the Merce Cunningham Dance Foundation and Company in the late 1990s, first as Company Manager, later as Executive Director, the latter position held until Cunninghams death in 2009. Along the way theyve had many adventures, including exploring the world of food as it was lived by both artists through the course of their adult lives. Cages adoption of the macrobiotic diet in the early 1980s held fast for them both and has been discussed and emulated by countless colleagues the world over. We listen at the close of tonights program to an excerpt from an impromptu performance by So Percussion who were invited to come to dinner and sing for their supper " to play Merce Cunninghams loft, a large and unwieldy instrument.
In 2009, during the sixth in a series of signature, site-specific performances at Dia:Beacon by the Merce Cunningham Dance Company titled Beacon Events, the John Cage Trust and Dia:Beacon joined forces to present Cage in the Kitchen, wherein Dia:Beacons caf was transformed into a macrobiotic eatery with a new menu consisting of all natural, local foods following Cages dietary guidelines. Cages favorite cookie recipe was provided on the broadcast page for last weeks Part I program, so this week we provide one of Cunninghams favorites " Broccoli Coleslaw " adapted by Kuhn from a recipe found in Martha Stewarts Everyday Food, a marvelous digest size cooking magazine for everyday cooks that ceased publication in 2012.
Broccoli Coleslaw (serves 4)
2 T. mayonaise 2 t. red wine vinegar coarse salt and pepper 2 small shallots, minced 6 ounces of broccoli spears (no florets), peeled and finely chopped (about 2 cups)<
In a medium bowl, combine mayonaise and vinegar, then season with salt and pepper. Add shallot and broccoli, stir to combine, and serve.
The late Pulitzer Prize-winning biographer Kenneth Silverman once described his "Begin Again: A Biography of John Cage" (Knopf, 2012) as the hardest book hed ever written. This was because, as he put it, pick up any rock and theres John Cage! Indeed, Cage was not only a world-renowned composer, numbering among his compositions the still notoriously tacet 433, but a ground-breaking poet, a philosopher, a chess master who studied with Marcel Duchamp, a macrobiotic chef, a devotee of Zen Buddhism, a prolific visual artist, and an avid and pioneering mycologist. He was also life partner to the celebrated American choreographer, Merce Cunningham, for nearly half a century, and thus well known in the world of modern dance. Episode 124. EVERGREEN
Trevor Carlson About Cage, Cunningham, and Food, Part II
Weekly program featuring conversations between Laura Kuhn, Director of the John Cage Trust, and Cage experts and enthusiasts from around the world.
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June 15, 2023
Produced for Wave Farm in the Hudson Valley in New York.
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