Abstract
This special concert in the "Opera Nova" series invites you to switch sides: from listening to joining in. The focus is on making music together, and this requires neither virtuoso technique nor any previous musical experience. What is needed instead are open ears, curiosity and a willingness to communicate with others without words – solely through simple, self-generated sounds.
All three works of the evening are by composers who fundamentally rethought the relationship between performers and audience. In "Stones" by Christian Wolff, a close associate of John Cage, stones become instruments; the verbal score is limited to just a few instructions: "Make sounds with stones … Do not break anything." Cage’s legendary "4′33″" draws attention to everything that is already sounding around us. And in "Paragraph 7" from Cornelius Cardew’s "The Great Learning", many individual voices grow into a collective sound that gradually transforms.
We ask you to bring a few smaller stones that you can carry yourself.