Alarm Will Sound performing John Cage’s Song Books

Celebrate the John Cage centennial with Alarm Will Sound’s innovative staging of Cage’s extraordinary work, Song Books, receiving its U.S. premiere at River To River as a co-commission with The Holland Festival. Perhaps Cage’s greatest music-theater work, Song Books is a collection of instrumental compositions, songs, electronic music and theater pieces that can be combined in countless ways. Song Books holds an astonishing range of musical styles that is increasingly relevant to today’s musical world and resonates with the breadth of Alarm Will Sound’s repertoire. This original production–created by director Nigel Maister and Cage scholar Rob Haskins–re-imagines Cage’s 1970 text as a contemporary, smart and dramatic theatrical and musical event.