10,000 to One: A Tribute to John Cage’s Buddhism-Inspired Work with Adam Tendler

In the 1950s, John Cage composed a series of works inspired by the Buddhist concept of the Ten Thousand Things, a metaphor for the “everywhere-ness” of Buddha-nature and the uncountable forms of life and presence. Designed for solo or simultaneous performance, constructed with elaborate time structures, and requiring unprecedented technical demands from instrumentalists, these seldom performed works provide a glimpse into a short but crucial period for Cage in his landmark shift to chance operations and Eastern discipline as the foundation for his musical language.

Pianist Adam Tendler returns to the Rubin Museum five years after his sold-out performance of Cage’s Sonatas and Interludes, to present an ambitious concert experiment featuring two of Cage’s last major works for prepared piano, 31’57.9864 for a pianist (1954) and 34’46.776” for a pianist (1954). The Cage pieces are presented simultaneously with the composer’s own unreleased recording of 45’ for a speaker (1954), and are followed with two later works, 0’00” (1962) and One (1987).

The concert will be followed by a discussion with Adam Tendler, Laura Kuhn, the Executive Director of the John Cage Trust, and James Pritchett, author of The Music of John Cage.

About the Performer

Adam Tendler has been called “an exuberantly expressive pianist” who “vividly displayed his enthusiasm for every phrase” by The Los Angeles Times, a “quietly charismatic…intrepid…outstanding…maverick pianist” by The New Yorker, a “modern-music evangelist” by Time Out New York, and a pianist who “has managed to get behind and underneath the notes, living inside the music and making poetic sense of it all,” by The Baltimore Sun, which continued, “if they gave medals for musical bravery, dexterity and perseverance, Adam Tendler would earn them all.” New York Times critic Anthony Tommasini wrote that Tendler played an outdoor performance of John Cage’s music “captivatingly…the wondrously subdued sounds silenced many, who listened closely even as street bustle and chirping birds blended in.”











When: Fri., Aug. 4, 2017 at 7:00 pm - 8:30 pm
Where: Rubin Museum of Art
150 W. 17th St.
212-620-5000
Price: $18 advance/$20 day of
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In the 1950s, John Cage composed a series of works inspired by the Buddhist concept of the Ten Thousand Things, a metaphor for the “everywhere-ness” of Buddha-nature and the uncountable forms of life and presence. Designed for solo or simultaneous performance, constructed with elaborate time structures, and requiring unprecedented technical demands from instrumentalists, these seldom performed works provide a glimpse into a short but crucial period for Cage in his landmark shift to chance operations and Eastern discipline as the foundation for his musical language.

Pianist Adam Tendler returns to the Rubin Museum five years after his sold-out performance of Cage’s Sonatas and Interludes, to present an ambitious concert experiment featuring two of Cage’s last major works for prepared piano, 31’57.9864 for a pianist (1954) and 34’46.776” for a pianist (1954). The Cage pieces are presented simultaneously with the composer’s own unreleased recording of 45’ for a speaker (1954), and are followed with two later works, 0’00” (1962) and One (1987).

The concert will be followed by a discussion with Adam Tendler, Laura Kuhn, the Executive Director of the John Cage Trust, and James Pritchett, author of The Music of John Cage.

About the Performer

Adam Tendler has been called “an exuberantly expressive pianist” who “vividly displayed his enthusiasm for every phrase” by The Los Angeles Times, a “quietly charismatic…intrepid…outstanding…maverick pianist” by The New Yorker, a “modern-music evangelist” by Time Out New York, and a pianist who “has managed to get behind and underneath the notes, living inside the music and making poetic sense of it all,” by The Baltimore Sun, which continued, “if they gave medals for musical bravery, dexterity and perseverance, Adam Tendler would earn them all.” New York Times critic Anthony Tommasini wrote that Tendler played an outdoor performance of John Cage’s music “captivatingly…the wondrously subdued sounds silenced many, who listened closely even as street bustle and chirping birds blended in.”

Buy tickets/get more info now