Notice Recordings is pleased to present the release of Portland, Oregon-based percussionist Matt Hannafin’s “John Cage: Four Realizations for Solo Percussion”, which offers attentive, probing interpretations of pieces that bookend the final thirty years of the composer’s work. Simultaneously restless and nuanced, Hannafin’s performance demonstrates Cage’s continued relevance and enduring ability to push performers beyond their performative biases and toward the unexpected.

Written with no instrumentation, “Variations II” (1961) and “Variations III” (1963) both provide toolkit-like sets of marked-up transparencies which are allowed to fall into random overlapping patterns. “c Ȼomposed Improvisation for One-Sided Drums with or without Jangles” and “One4” (both 1990) are two of only five pieces Cage wrote specifically for solo percussion, and explore Cage’s late-career interest in directed improvisation. “c Ȼomposed Improvisation” was written for percussionist Glen Velez, with whom Matt Hannafin studied just three years after the piece was created.

Commissioned by Notice Recordings, these four performances are in dialogue not only with each other but with Notice itself, which has its roots in the underground/DIY realm while also exploring contemporary/academic composition. The accessibility, inventiveness, and challenge of compositions like these make Cage a unique pivot point between these two worlds.

Available as 320k MP3 or 16bit FLAC