READING 26’1.1499, 2024 ( Sound performance together with Deborah Walker) The performance is a collaboration with renowned cellist Deborah Walker that specializes in the compositions of Fluxus artists, Philip Corner and Charlotte Moorman in particular. The work is our interpretation of the history of John Cage's “26'1.1499. for a String Player,” and especially its bold variation by Charlotte Moorman with Nam Jun Paik that was quite far from the minimalist original. The question arises, is this still an interpretation or a completely new work? Each of the 85 pages of the score used by Moorman are entirely covered with her handwritten annotations made during subsequent concerts, including clips of newspaper’s text or advertisements. Combining our experience in different fields - mine from the visual and performing arts side and Deborah’s – as a professional musician, we decided to confront the multi-layered (both in terms of visual and content) score left by Moorman. In order to do so, we made a transcription of all of Moorman's personal notes within the time frame given by Cage (while Moorman was most often accused of being rather ambivalent about rhythm or meter). Her handwritten notes concern cello gestures, dynamics (e.g., forte, pianissimo), the duration of events in seconds, instructions regarding the preparation or use of certain objects, and other actions. In a spoken performance we only utter what has been added by Moorman to the original Cage’s score (respecting at the same time the formal aspects of the composition). “Reading 26’1.1499” is both a synthesis of all the previous interpretations of this piece up to our performance, and our own take on that score.

︎ Weronika Trojanska and Deborah Walker Considerations towards a re-enactment of John Cage's 26'1.1499