CAGE100 - LET THE CELEBRATIONS BEGIN!

July 6th, 2012, is the official opening of the international art and music project CAGE100. John Cage is turning 100, and to mark the occasion, the Forum of Contemporary Music Leipzig [FZML] is initiating a unique, international project. The program consists of 100 DIFFERENT EVENTS. Performances will take place AROUND THE WORLD and we are honored to present PIERRE BOULEZ as the honorary artistic director. Many of the musical events of CAGE100 take place outside of the traditional concert hall experience. An unusual selection of Cage's oeuvre will be performed, and the festival will enable a broad and diverse audience to experience his art.

CAGE100 opens with the evolving EXHIBITION "OPENING SPACES FOR ACTION" at the Gallery of Contemporary Art [GfZK] in Leipzig. This exhibition will be open to the public for three months. The Forum for Contemporary Music has commissioned several renowned international artists to produce works that involve the audience in the creative process. To mark the start of the festival, there will be a mass performance of SPEAKERS AND CHILDREN in the marketplace in Leipzig. This celebrates the essential Cage concept of indeterminacy. In the "Carillon Project", 50 CITIES WILL HEAR CAGE'S "MUSIC FOR CARILLON" PIECES SIMULTANEOUSLY throughout the event. Another unique project is the concert series "No Purpose. Sounds.", which uses chance processes and audience participation to perform Cage's "combinable" works.

CAGE100 takes place in different cities and radio stations simultaneously. The culmination is the world premiere of a specifically commissioned "EXQUISITE CORPSE" COMPOSITION THAT INVOLES THE PARTICIPATION OF 100 INTERNATIONAL COMPOSERS, in New York and Leipzig, in honor of John Cage. The "SPACE FOR NO-THING" [www.cage100.com] and the "BOOK FOR NO-THING" will accompany and document the whole project using unusual, artistic presentation formats.