A DAY OF MUSIC AND SOUND FOR ALL THE FAMILY AT TRAMWAY

TRAMWAY FAMILY DAY:
John Cage Musicircus
10am – 6pm,
Saturday 26th February 2011

“I love the activity of sound. What it does is it gets louder and quieter, it gets higher and lower, it gets longer and shorter. I’m completely satisfied with that.” – John Cage

A DAY OF MUSIC AND SOUND FOR ALL THE FAMILY AT TRAMWAY

Tramway Family Day: John Cage Musicircus 2 is a development of the hugely popular event held at Tramway in May 2010 featuring live music, sound and light installations, workshops, explorations of sound technology and silence all suitable for babies, toddlers, children and their families.

John Cage is known as one of the most influential composers of the 20th Century, as well as being a poet, music theorist, philosopher and artist. He is perhaps best known for his exploration of silence, 4’33”, which was recently the focus for a Christmas number 1 campaign: ‘Cage Against the Machine’.

Tramway Family Day: John Cage Musicircus 2 aims to explore Cage’s work and make it accessible and fun for new audiences through a series of free performances, workshops and sound installations.

The event features live music from the likes of Second Hand Marching Band, Ensemble Thing (who will be playing Louis Andriessen’s Hoketus), Wounded Knee, Jer Reid and dancer Rosalind Masson, a participatory improvisation space co-ordinated by Matt Evans (Ug!, Guanoman) featuring 20+ musicians from across Glasgow (including members of members of Tattie Toes, The One Ensemble, Pyramidion and Black Sun), sound and light installations from Katy Wilson (Starcatchers’ artist in residence) and Kim Moore (Zoey Van Goey), workshops exploring rhythm, harmony and the science of sound suitable for ages 5-14, and explorations of sound technology from Stevenson College Edinburgh’s Performance Technology students, sound artist Noma and Fife-based artist Alex Tobin, all suitable for babies, toddlers, children and their families.

Based on Cage’s own notes about this piece there are a number of ‘rules’ Tramway will be following, to ensure we are consistent with Cage’s vision for the Musicircus:
1. Bring together as much music (groups and soloists) as practical under the circumstances.
2. The event will last longer that ordinary concerts
3. Create lots of different areas for the music to be performed across the venue.
4. There will be many groups performing simultaneously at any one time.
5. None of the musicians can be paid, and the event must be free to the public in harmony with Cage’s philosophy of separating music from conventional economics.
6. Exercise no aesthetic bias; let each performer or group play their own thing, creating a multiplicity of centres.

Proposals for performances, sound installations and workshops were sought late 2010, the enthusiastic response itself indicative of the strength of the cult of John Cage in Glasgow’s contemporary music scene. As well as drawing together the programme from Glasgow’s independent contemporary music scene, the event is also being held in association with John Cage: Every Day is a Good Day, at the Hunterian Art Gallery, 19 February - 2 April 2011. Open Monday - Saturday, 9.30am - 5.00pm, admission free. Visit www.glasgow.ac.uk/hunterian for further details.

Tramway Family Days started in November 2009 as an initiative to bring more families and young children into the venue, and into contact with high quality, world-class contemporary art and performance.

Now happening every three months, they have grown to take over the full venue, and for the first time Family Day will feature performances in our main 600-seater theatre, Tramway 1.

Tramway Family Days respond to, and develop out of, the core programme of visual art and performance at the venue. They offer the chance for adults and children to engage and learn together as a unit. The John Cage Musicircus event explores Tramway’s role as a venue hosting contemporary music, and its role in developing collaborations between musicians and artists working in other disciplines. This event has a relationship with other adult-focused contemporary music programme such as Instal Music Festival and 2010’s Midsummer Day’s Dream as well as other family-friendly programming, such as Tramway’s Starcatcher’s residency.

The events always create space for creative responses from the audience, with plenty of opportunities to make sound and explore our relationship to sound and silence throughout this event.

Previous family days have explored animation in response to Lara Favaretto’s Autumn / Winter 2009 exhibition, documentary film inspired by the work of Glasgow-based artist Duncan Campbell, contemporary music with the first John Cage Musicircus event and found objects as art in association with children’s art organisation Giant and their Summer exhibition in Tramway Folding Clouds and Hoovering Hills. Our last Family Day in October 2010, titled Set In Motion, featured dance performances and workshops in collaboration with The Work Room, Scottish Ballet and The Hidden Gardens.

The Tramway Family Day events have been very successful at bringing families and children into contact with world-class, contemporary art and performance, with almost 5000 people engaging so far.

The Tramway Family Day events are a key component of Tramway’s long-term vision to inspire and add to our understanding of today’s world by connecting artists and audiences.

visit www.tramway.org for the full programme

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