JOHN CAGE | the silence of the music emanuel dimas de melo pimenta curated by lucrezia de domizio durini MART Contemporary Art Museum of Rovereto and Trento March 7 | April 30 | 2003 audio compact discs
Music for Merce Cunningham is a collection of historical musical compositions created by Emanuel Dimas de Melo Pimenta and performed by Merce Cunningham. They are constantly referred in the book JOHN CAGE - The Silence of the Music and also in the letters by John Cage to Emanuel Pimenta.
These works by Emanuel Dimas de Melo Pimenta are an important addition to the enlarging field of electronic music. They give a sound experience that is original and contribute to the growing possibilities of the medium.
To have collaborated with Merce Cunningham in the last seventeen years is much more than a pleasure or an honor - it is to walk, side by side, with an enlightened genius that illuminates everything ahead, step by step, like a star, the morning star.
In 1986, John Cage invited me to collaborate with Merce Cunningham. In that moment, John chose both ShortWaves 1985 and SBbr as the musical pieces for Fabrications, which was first performed in 1987. When John invited me, I knew absolutely nothing about the choreography that Merce was creating. Merce also did not know about my music. Dove Bradshaw was invited to create the scenarios, the clothes, and the light design. Dove also did know nothing about our projects. It was the first time I worked together with Dove. William Anastasi was a great friend of John. They played chess virtually every week. We remained friends forever. One did know nothing about the other's project. An important philosophical principle defended by Merce and by John. ShortWaves 1985 used sounds that I recorded inside Brazilian rain forests in that year. Sounds from short wave radio emissions from all over the world to the forests. All my pieces are alive, always changing, true "places" for experience, for freedom. When they will be frozen - if in the future people will want to play exactly what they imagine I desired - then, that music will no longer be my pieces, but something about them. A shadow. Of course, my music can be recorded - but this is another matter. On recorded music it is about to change ourselves and to always be able to listen with "new ears". Thus, for the performance of ShortWaves 1985 and SBbr at the Lincoln Center in New York City, in 2002, I asked Takehisa Kosugi and Christian Wolff to participate. They were amazing and both pieces continued alive, changing. The first recording of ShortWaves 1985 was published by MODE Records, in New York City, in 1989. In 1991 Merce used Gravitational Sounds for Trackers. It was marvellous because Merce was researching with Life Forms and Trackers was, if I am not wrong, his first piece totally created inside virtual environments. Gravitational Sounds, also created inside virtual environments, was composed using a strange attractor I made based on Michel Henon's famous mathematical equation. Dove Bradshaw created all scenery and light design. I remember that David Tudor was especially happy to perform Gravitational Sounds in different theatres a little everywhere. Then, in 1995, Merce started to use Microcosmos for his wonderful Windows. The first performances were in Montpellier and Aix-en-Provence, in France. It was, not only for me, a special moment to had the legendary historian Georges Duby in the audience. Microcosmos was made using some principles based on nanotechnology. In fact, the virtual music score was created after micro information of a ferrous mineral segment. This music was composed to have its sounds gradually changed by sounds collected in diverse parts of the world, where the Company performed. Windows had the scenery design made by Suzanne Gallo and Aaron Copp after a work by John Cage.
The four pieces included in this compact disc have been used by Merce Cunningham since 1987, in the performances Fabrications, Trackers and Windows. ShortWaves 1985 and SBbr were recorded in 2002, in New York City, at the Lincoln Center New York State Theatre.
All thanks to David Vaugham, Takehisa Kosugi and Christian
Wolff.
The compact disc is produced and published by ASA Art and Technology of London.