Recent happenings . . .

For the last several years, I have been working on a chapter called John Cage, Pianist, for an online SONUS publication of the Orpheus Institute (Ghent, Belgium). It should be available in several months, and it had its start at the 20-22 October 2022 Orpheus conference The Performer-Composer in the second half of the 20th century.

In May, 2024, my contribution to Wesleyan University’s NuMusWes24, Wesleyan50 Composers Project, was a presentation called Anne D. Modugno, George Cacioppo, Alvin Lucier, and John Cage: Instructors.

At the Orpheus Institute, on 19-20 June 2024, as part of the Study day with Catherine Laws: Musical Touch and Vicarious Perception, I gave a talk called Vicariousness, action, simultaneity: musings on meaning within musical touch. 
Abstract:
What might underlie inclinations of listeners and performers to attribute distinct aspects of meaning to their experiences of musical touch? Exploring this question has led to commentary by Umberto Eco and to recent, ecologically-based writing by the biosemiotics community, both of which emerge as critically engaging and thought-provoking.

And, all along, beginning several years before and occupying my main focus now, is a book I’ve been writing. It’s about a specific kind of movement and music practice, integral to a progressive education curriculum in early 20th century Los Angeles, which stemmed from the assumption that physical movement is a form of knowledge-making.