No Sound Is Innocent exhibition

No-houndThe Great Learning Orchestra will take part in the exhibition No Sound Is Innocent  at Marabouparken Konsthall in Sundbyberg, Sweden. In the exhibition they will show what they are referring to as the a4 room, where one page graphic scores will be displayed, along with corresponding recorded interpretations of them.

“a4 room is a cross-border project between visual art, composed music and improvisation which was initiated in 2004 by Leif Jordansson for The Great Learning Orchestra. It was initially an open invitation to contribute with a composition for orchestra, with the only restriction that it should be written to fit on an a4 sheet. Now it has now grown into an archive with more than 140 compositions made by artists and composers from different genres and from all over the world.” Included in the collection are by two scores by JG Thirlwell, as well as scores by LaMonte Young, Christine Ödlund, John Cage, Per Magnusson, Arnold Dreyblatt, Ebba Matz, Tony Harris, Hugh Shrapnel and many more.

On the opening night, August 29 2014, participants of the Great Learning Orchestra will perform one of Thirlwell’s scores.

The No Sound Is Innocent exhibition will also include Erik Bünger and Angelika Mesiti. The exhibition will run until November 30 2014.

JGT Meets the Great Learning Orchestra

DSC04363JG Thirlwell has been meeting and work-shopping with The Great Learning Orchestra in Stockholm, with a view to JG creating a major composition for them. When completed the piece would likely premiere in 2015. The Great Learning Orchestra is a network of a little more than one hundred musicians from different genres, cities and countries, meeting up to explore music with listening in the center. They are based in Stockholm, but collaborates with composers and musicians from all over the world. They have performed pieces by Terry Riley, Gavin Bryars, Lou Reed, Arnold Dreyblatt and many more, as well as performing a multitude of visual and instruction scores from a wide gamut of artists and composers. As their name suggests, they are structurally based on a model suggested by Cornelius Cardew‘s Scratch Orchestra.