John Cage’s Europeras 1 & 2

Production Year: 2020

Release: Greek Premiere at the Greek National Opera Alternative Stage Stavros Niarchos Foundation Cultural Center. Director: Zoe Hadjiantoniou

Medium: Music Theatre for Custom Max/MSP randomisation software, quadraphonic sound, 14 singers, 10 stage assistants, 24 musicians, 127 costumes, 72 archival images, 121 props, 101 excerpts from recordings, 112 scenes.

Documentation: website

For the purpose of the piece I've developed several randomization patches which imitate the original Andrew Culver's programs and also a Max/MSP patch consisting of a master stopwatch distributed in 7 display monitors as well as any mobile device through JavaScript and a local server. The patch also randomly triggers John Cage's "Truckera" which is the tape part of the piece, as well as audio fragments of the Greek National Opera archive. The audio is diffused in a random circular manner through a quadraphonic sound system.