What if we had a festival and nobody came? And nobody manned the exhibits, some exhibits fail to materialize, had no written descriptions of said exhibits, and had a stunning lack of administerial oversight? Well that was the Saturday morning leg of this festival which was designed to celebrate the modern composition luminaries that have graced its uber-liberal hallowed halls. John Cage, Alvin Lucier, and Anthony Braxton are top tier musical theorists that have left an indelible mark on what we know as “music”. The CFA website listed three musical installations set up on campus that were open from 8am-midnight. The first was a video project “Saturn to Jupiter” by Brent Wetters, the next “For Alvin Lucier ( automated pipe organ) by Brian Parks, and the third was “Deer Tick: Solar Sounders on the Lawn” by Daniel Fishkin. I go in the Ring Family Auditorium at 11am to view S to J, only to find the theater empty. The computer on the front console beckoned judging from the “start” screen on the big screen. As the only human in this subterranean sharp edged concrete igloo of a structure, I press start. The screen goes blue, then asks for my username and password. Cage couldn’t have drawn it up better! As I go to leave, the morning handler stops in and says he will reboot. While he reconfigures, I trek to Memorial Chapel to view the pipe organ. Tiptoeing through the Gaza protest encampment then passed a lacrosse match to enter the beautiful, but once again human-less, venue, I am greeted, personally, by a self propelled pipe organ emitting a low level hum. On the altar, this antiquated musical keyboard had a variety of labeled knobs and dials. With no human or written descriptors, one was left to wonder Luciers attachment to the piece. On the way back to the auditorium to see if my one music nerd acquaintance had righted the ship, I pass by the quad where the solar sounders should be. Again, no human, but I do see several speakers and a couple of expensive looking microphones lurking furtively in the perfectly manicured shrubbery. Was I supposed to pinch the mics and sell them on eBay? Again, not sure because of the now annoying lack of people. The video was restored and the Saturn to Jupiter piece was a series of short films and stills taken on a frozen path from Winnipeg to the North Pole. Eerie frozen landscapes and nature shots were punctuated by same of wind battered seemingly abandoned industrial outposts. The sound was a mixture of of boots crunching on very cold snow, wind, and some distant, largely unintelligible conversation snippets. Imagine, there was more human contact in the video of the tundra than from the festival itself. The contradictions on my walk were striking, lacrosse match vs. the Gaza encampment; the skull and bones buildings vs. the submerged cubist igloo and let’s not forget modern music festival vs. me. As I was leaving the auditorium, I shared a laugh with a Spanish couple, the only other patrons of this part of the fest. I tell them that somewhere in heaven, John Cage is smiling at my attempt to find sound…..or not.
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