Exhibition
Lecture on the Weather
Documents of a collaboration with John Cage
American composer and sound artist Maryanne Amacher was first invited to Berlin in 1980 to take part in Für Augen und Ohren, an exhibition at the Academy of the Arts.
She had submitted a project proposal for a »telephone concert« in which she, located in Berlin, would be connected to John Cage in New York, but technical issues prohibited the project from being realised.
On 30th January 1980, however, a performance (without her presence) of Lecture on the Weather took place as part of the exhibition’s accompanying programme.
Lecture on the Weather – »a collaborative composition / performance with John Cage« was realised in 1975 as a work commissioned by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation on the occasion of the USA’s bicentennial. The premiere was held on 15th June 1976. According to John Cage, the piece is concerned with work materials for a radio broadcast or theatre performance without a conductor: a preface, wind, rain and storm recordings, a film (negatives of drawings by Henry David Thoreau, the reading and singing of produced by Luis Frangella), in which lightning is portrayed through short projections of several text fragments by Thoreau and ad libitum the playing of instruments.
Maryanne Amacher was responsible for the wind, rain and storm recordings.
Following her death in 2009, Maryanne Amacher left behind an only fleetingly viewed archive stored in approximately 200 boxes. With Micah Silver’s and Bill Dietz’ assistance, it was possible to compile Maryanne Amacher’s recordings, sketches, notes on Lecture on the Weather for display in an exhibition.