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Austin New Music Co-op Previews Cardew's "The Great Learning"In anticipation of our upcoming performance of the entire seven part cycle of Cardew's epic work, NMC previews "Paragraph 5" of "The Great Learning."
Saturday, May 15th - 1:30pm For the past eight months, Austin New Music Co-op has been in the planning and rehearsal stages of a very rare event. Cornelius Cardew's 1970 masterpiece "The Great Learning" is a work in seven parts or "Paragraphs," based on translations of Confucius by Ezra Pound. The piece instigated the formation of the Scratch Orchestra, who also premiered the piece. Since then the involved 7+ hour composition, which calls for upwards of 40 performers, unconventional instruments and a pipe organ, has been very rarely presented. In fact, research by NMC has thus far been unable to locate a single complete performance of the piece in the US. Once the piece is ready for performance, NMC plans to present the work over multiple nights in Austin. In the meantime, please join us for a "happening-style" preview of Paragraph 5 on the beautiful plaza of the MACC. This event is free and open to all. About Cornelius CardewCornelius Cardew was born May 7, 1936, in Winchcombe, Gloucestershire, England, and killed in a hit and run automobile accident in London, December 13, 1981. He taught at the Royal Academy of Music in London as well as other schools. With Michael Parsons and Howard Skempton he formed an improvisational ensemble, The Scratch Orchestra, which premiered the entire cycle of The Great Learning. He was active in the seminal chamber ensemble AMM with Eddie Prevost, Keith Rowe, John Tilbury and Christopher Hobbs. Cardew's concern for human rights and economic justice led him into Marxist politics and renunciation of his experimental music. He pursued popular styles of music-making. At the very end of his life (and after Mao Tse-Tung's death), he appeared to be open to reclaiming aspects of his earlier broad approach to sonic art. |
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