Tuesday, May 31, 2022

A cactus on a concert stage in Budapest

In late 1991, I was living in Berlin, and as my father was in Budapest collaborating with mathematicians and dancing Hungarian folk dances, I went to visit him. He took me to a concert by the Amadinda Percussion Group, a classical ensemble he had already heard several times. Before the concert, we noticed a small cactus at the front of the stage, with a microphone next to it. Referring to the program, I said, "You know there's going to be a piece by John Cage when there's a miked cactus on stage!" During the concert, then, we heard how plucking the hard spines of the cactus made a cool percussion sound. (Andrew Shields, #111words, 31 May 2022)

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