John Cage and the world’s longest concert

Posted on February 10, 02009
Filed Under Inspiration, Journal

Back in the 1970's the late great Ken Campbell staged an epic nine hour stage version of the Illuminatus! trilogy. Not content with this he followed it up with a 22-hour staging of Neil Oram's The Warp cycle. These hemorrhoid-inducing theatrical marathons pale however when compared with the world's longest concert.

In a small chapel in Halberstadt, Germany an organ is playing Organ2/ASLSP by John Cage. The recital began in September 5th 2000 (Cage's 88th birthday) and is due to last for another 630 years. The church of St. Burchardi was packed this morning as crowds gathered to witness a rare event: the changing of a note. The video below was taken in July last year when the previous note changed.

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For more information about John Cage, ASLSP and church of St. Burchardi you can visit the John Cage Orgelprojeckt.

thanks to Jay Ball

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2 Comments so far
  1. John Williams February 11, 2009 4:02 am

    I hope the world slows down enough to realise that john cage is the berni Madoff of the classical music world. Perhaps in 20 years they will turn off this gimmick and play some real classical music.

  2. Jonathan Gray February 19, 2009 10:50 pm

    Amazing!