An intel­lec­tual is a man who says a sim­ple thing in a dif­fi­cult way; an artist is a man who says a dif­fi­cult thing in a sim­ple way.

Sum­mer has just begun, and that means it’s not too soon to think about where you’ll be sit­ting in come the fall. The brochures and book­lets are start­ing to arrive, and

• Miller The­atre, always one of my favorite places, has got a series of Composer’s Por­traits that for range and depth exceed event their high standards.
• BAM has a new the­ater and is fill­ing it with things for their Next Wave fes­ti­val. The monolothic work, and worth admir­ing, is Ein­stein on the Beach, but they are also hit­ting the extreme points of range and breadth. For music alone, there’s So Per­cus­sion, Phil Kline and Theo Bleck­mann and a silent movie from Ernst Lubitsch with music by Brooklyn’s own Numi­nous.
• You won’t be get­ting a book­let, but mark your calendar’s for Petr Kotik’s fes­ti­val of music from John Cage and his con­tem­po­raries. I have seen a lot of Cage per­for­mances so far this year, and keep track of all the cen­ten­nial fes­ti­vals, and this is the one to see, for both the pro­gram­ming and the musi­cal and intel­lec­tual understanding.
  

  The Golden Record

  Mankind has breached the outer edge of our solar sys­tem, with some hum­ble offer­ings of our par­tic­u­lar genius. If you grew up want­ing to be an astro­naut, like me, it’s a poignant time.

  And if this hasn’t crossed one of your feeds, take the time to read on l’affaire Emily White, or as I would call it, wis­dom ver­sus blithe ignorance.

   

  Related arti­cles, cour­tesy of Zemanta:

  • John Cage at 100 Festival
  • Record­Cage

  

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