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In "___Circus On ___ " American composer John Cage devised procedures for transforming a book into a "musicircus," a mixed-media event for spoken text, recorded sounds and live performance, in which all the elements in the event are derived from the book itself. My realization uses as source text Jack Kerouac's 1957 classic road trip novel On the Road. The spoken text is a "mesostic" (Cage's variation of an acrostic), a poem composed by drawing words from the source text in a sequential manner, greatly condensing the amount of material and upsetting syntactic conventions, but retaining the flavor and spirit of the original prose. [Editor's Note: You can appreciate the evolution of this work by first reading and hearing Thorman's complete mesostic poem, "Just a talk about except," as published in Acoustic Levitation.] The recorded sounds are sounds described in the book, and recordings from locations mentioned in the book, mixed so that they correspond to the sequence established by the poem. Part One of Kerouac Circus corresponds to the first part of the novel, in which Kerouac and Neal Cassady drive from New York to Denver and San Francisco. Live performance elements include bop trio, folk singer, Mexican guitar music, and swing dance. The complete five-part event will be premiered as part of the Biannual International Electro-Acoustic Music Festival in New York City in November. [http://www.brooklyn.cuny.edu/bc/spotlite/news/111104.htm] Almost all of the
sounds were gathered from YouTube and freesound.org and mixed with Audacity
in March 2009. * * * * * * * * * Listen
Now * * * * * * * * * Marc Thorman is a composer and performer residing in New York City. He currently teaches theory and history at the Conservatory of Music at Brooklyn College, City University of New York. His doctoral dissertation is the first comprehensive analysis of the use of text and speech in compositions by John Cage. Thorman has composed works for solo piano, electronic media, and acoustical instruments, including an opera for children through a commission from Meet the Composer. He worked as an improvisational pianist for The Boston Ballet, and led a Boston punk rock band that produced several independent releases. He is currently composing and producing "Baseball Portraits," a video-sound installation, and recording an album of original music for piano and phonograph records. |
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