Introduced by Laura Kuhn, executive director of the John Cage Trust at Bard College
Free; reservations recommended  

Hudson Hall welcomes author and John Cage specialist James Pritchett as he discusses Cage’s String Quartet in Four Parts (1950) and its thematic position within the context of Cage’s work. The piece is performed by Zoë Auerbach (violin), Lana Auerbach (violin), Devin Cowan (viola) and Cordelia Mutter (cello) in Nearly Stationary, a new dance work conceived and designed by Barbara Kilpatrick and choreographed and performed by Rashaun Mitchell + Silas Riener. 

In Pritchett’s words, the String Quartet in Four Parts is “uniquely positioned right on the fault line between the ‘old Cage’ of the 1940s and the ‘new Cage’ of the 1950s…When [Cage] started composing the quartet he said that ‘without actually using silence I should like to praise it.'” Pritchett is best known for his writings on Cage including The Music of John Cage, the first critical study of all of the composer’s work.  

The presentation is followed by a brief Q&A with the audience.

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• Hudson Hall’s programming is made possible by the New York State Council on the Arts, with the support of the Governor and the New York Legislature.