Category Archives: John Cage

A New Generation: From Hamburg to Hà Nội with Lương Huệ Trinh

07 Thursday Mar 2019

Posted by in Ancient Ensemble of Tonkin, Arnold Schoenberg, Composers, Contemporary Music, Elbphilharmonie, Gurrelieder, Hamburg, Hanoi, Hanoi New Music Ensemble, John Cage, Kent Nagano, Kim Ngoc Tran, Minh Dam Quang, Nguyen Minh Nhat, Nguyen Thien Dao, Ton That Tiet, Toru Takemitsu, Uncategorized, Vietnam, Vu Nhat Tan, William Kraft

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Our first meeting at Public Coffee in the Neustadt District of Hamburg.

Nothing is random. In June of 2017, on our way to take in the conclusion of the opening season of the Elbphilharmonie in Hamburg with Schoenberg’s Gurrelieder conducted by our friend of over forty years, Kent Nagano, I noticed a Facebook post of a young Vietnamese student who was part of a team contributing a technology component to a Hamburg Staatsoper production of Henry Purcell’s Dido and Æneas.

That got my attention for all types of reasons! 

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Sound Dreams in Los Angeles

16 Wednesday Jul 2014

Posted by in Cambodia, Carlos Chavez, Composers, Contemporary Music, Elliott Carter, Evan Hughes, John Cage, Kyoto, LA International New Music Festival, Latin Grammy Awards, Los Angeles, Mexico, Music, Southwest Chamber Music, Travel, Uncategorized, Vietnam

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East meets West in Los Angeles.

East meets West in Los Angeles as violist Do Huong Tra My of Hanoi tries Cafecito Organico at the Hollywood Farmers Market.

David Letterman, the revered American comic who has been keeping us up late at night for over 30 years here in the United States, revealed the two components of a good joke. To be funny the joke has to be 1) Obvious and 2) Stupid. Say all the words right and you can cue laughter.

If you are already one of my 4500 blog readers in 80 countries, you know I don’t see my LA International New Music Festival as an independent endeavor. So many ideas go into artistic decisions that adopting a single viewpoint is at the least annoying and at the worst dishonest. My thoughts and plots for the 2015 Festival continue apace, but for this post I thought I’d create an exposition of idea and concept behind the next installment.

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Gamelans & Ganeshas in the Berkshires

18 Wednesday Jun 2014

Posted by in John Cage, LA International New Music Festival, Music, Southwest Chamber Music, Travel, Uncategorized

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Longhua Temple in Shanghai.

Longhua Temple in Shanghai.

“The pure Walden water is mingled with the sacred water of the Ganges.”

I like surprises. The opening motto for this post is from Henry David Thoreau’s The Pond in Winter. Sorry, but none of us are as hip as we think we are. I keep urging people to get over themselves and not be indifferent to traditions. Beethoven and Emerson were big fans of the Bhagavad Gita long before the 60s and the Beat Generation.

I’ve spent a lot of time going in and out of Asia since 2002. Multiple trips to Japan, Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand, Hong Kong, Laos, China and Taiwan, twelve if I’m bothering to count. I’m sure to be back as soon as possible to experience India, Indonesia, Bali, Singapore and Penang, Kuala Lumpur.

Jan and I’ve been hooked by the food and philosophy, the complicated history (I love a good story and just trying to sort out the Soong Sisters is a historical page turner), the music and the landscape, the medical ideas and body use disciplines of yoga and Thai massage, the poetry and the I-ching and Tao Te Ching, but most of all the people, which now means old friends.

People aren’t their governments and Planet Earth is full of wonderful humans. Language barriers? Here’s a tip – smiles don’t need translations or apps.

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The Old Inn on the Green: Colonial Cuisine in New England

14 Saturday Jun 2014

Posted by in Composers, Contemporary Music, Food, John Cage, Southwest Chamber Music, Travel, Uncategorized, Vietnam

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Twilight fog in New England.

Twilight fog in New England at The Old Inn on the Green in New Marlborough.

There is an unescapable magic in the New England countryside of the Berkshire Hills in Western Massachusetts. The legendary fall foliage, the evanescent green of spring, the fireflies of summer, the winter white snow fall.

And this post is a story for my many curious and interested readers in over 80 countries around the globe. America is a complicated country, with huge frustrations, a complicated historical legacy concocted from British, French and Spanish colonial interests, and often maddening contradictions. There’s nothing like a good meal and a good book to help you start to understand a people and their country.

Do yourself a favor and make a reservation at The Old Inn on the Green.

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A Berkshire Morning Walk to Lake Buel

11 Wednesday Jun 2014

Posted by in Betty Freeman, John Cage, LA International New Music Festival, Music, Southwest Chamber Music, Travel, Uncategorized

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A path in the Berkshire woods near Lake Buel.

A path in the Berkshire woods near Lake Buel.

I awoke yesterday morning to the sound of soft rainfall on the leaves and trees. The birds were an amazingly diverse choir, tweeting and humming and cooing and singing me out of sleep into emerging daylight.

The Berkshire Hills in Massachusetts are a locus for my life. They provide a genuine home for American musicians at Tanglewood in Lenox, where in 1979 I met my wife Jan. Her mother was born in Pittsfield in 1928 and her grandparents are buried there. Her aunt and uncle still live in New Marlborough, her old Cousin Andrew is a farmer in Sandisfield and young Cousin Rebecca is getting married on Saturday in Great Barrington.

But as I heard the rain fall softly I remembered, with birds and rainfall my soundscape as I awoke, music by John Cage inspired by the old colonial composers and Henry David Thoreau.

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Hanoi in Hollywood 3

01 Thursday May 2014

Posted by in Betty Freeman, Composers, Contemporary Music, John Cage, LA International New Music Festival, Los Angeles, Southwest Chamber Music, Travel, Uncategorized, Vietnam

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Song Hong selfie going up Bunker Hill to Disney Hall.

Song Hong selfie going up Bunker Hill to Disney Hall.

I’ve always thought of Los Angeles as the New Vienna of classical music. Because if you care about the 20th century story of classical music, the chapters about LA are page turners.

Arnold Schoenberg and Igor Stravinsky for monumental starters. Martha Graham is from Santa Barbara cutting her teeth here as a young woman. John Cage is born here in 1912 (and Merce Cunningham dances in the world premiere of Appalachian Spring, which was composed mostly when Copland was at MGM). Erich Wolfgang Korngold establishes the film score and let’s be culturally honest and admit that movies have had an influence on the world. Pierre Boulez conducts his American debut at the Monday Evening Concerts, the oldest continuing series of new music in the world. And the LA Philharmonic’s Minimalist Jukebox Festival this season proves that a big institution can move forward.

And God bless Betty Freeman, who commissioned everybody and took pictures of them all (mine with Elliott Carter and Oliver Knussen are great lifetime memories). Driving past Hillcrest Dr. in Beverly Hills where she lived, just up the road from where I grew up in West Hollywood, never feels the same anymore……

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Who Needs Paris? The Restaurants and Bars of San Francisco

08 Tuesday Apr 2014

Posted by in Food, John Cage, LA International New Music Festival, San Francisco, Southwest Chamber Music, Travel, Uncategorized

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At home in San Francisco.

A nice first course in San Francisco’s Mission District.

I’ve been pulled back in my memory to my Aunt Lorraine today. With the news of the passing of Mickey Rooney, I’ve day dreamed of old stories she told me of her waitress years in Hollywood. She’d worked at Armstrong Schroeder’s on Wilshire Boulevard. It was THE all night haunt of Golden Era Hollywood.

She enjoyed telling me that Mickey and Judy Garland would flip an order of mashed potatoes onto the ceiling using long teaspoons at 3 AM. But she loved him as a customer and he was a generous tipper (yes, Jack Benny was cheap).

So I’ve been dreaming of restaurant memories with her and my parents. Which brings me to the Old School places of San Francisco.

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For John Cage & Betty Freeman in Los Angeles: Yoga from India & Zen from Japan

08 Saturday Feb 2014

Posted by in Betty Freeman, Composers, Contemporary Music, Food, John Cage, Kyoto, LA International New Music Festival, Latin Grammy Awards, Music, Southwest Chamber Music, Uncategorized

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Cage looking for his childhood home in Los Angeles (photo by Betty Freeman).

John Cage looking for his childhood home in Los Angeles in 1987 (photo by Betty Freeman).

Though I’ve spent time writing about Southeast Asia, Mexico and our recent Latin Grammy nomination with Gabriela Ortiz, my blog is rooted in my LA International New Music Festival. I am very grateful that since September I’ve acquired over 2,900 readers in 73 countries. My posts will continue to cast a wide net describing the personality of my programming. But with this blog I now want to spend time here at home.

No, I’m not moving to Southeast Asia or Mexico. I don’t need to because I live in LA.

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