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Sleep now in the fire.
- Rage Against The Machine

Topic:
A HANDHELD PROGRAM GUIDE
FOR THE CONCERT HALL?
The classical music equivalent of opera supertitles and museum audioguides

The Concert Companion navigates audience members through a symphony performance. Created by Roland Valliere with software developed by Kinoma and Tribeworks, the PDA-based system receives information via wireless during the performance. Text that is typically contained in program notes, such as background information about the piece, composer biographies, and motifs to listen for appears on command from a technician using a laptop at the back of the hall. One could imagine that the light from the displays would be distracting to others in the audience. Response from test groups has been positive, though there are likely to be discouraging sniffs from the purists. As with supertitles, if this device can attract bigger audiences, it may be a necessary evolution in symphony performance.

Which is more musical: a truck passing by a factory or a truck passing by a music school?
- John Cage

From John's - An Autobiographical Statement:

Neither of my parents went to college. When I did, I dropped out after two years. Thinking I was going to be a writer, I told Mother and Dad I should travel to Europe and have experiences rather than continue in school. I was shocked at college to see one hundred of my classmates in the library all reading copies of the same book. Instead of doing as they did, I went into the stacks and read the first book written by an author whose name began with Z. I received the highest grade in the class. That convinced me that the institution was not being run correctly. I left.

Read "The Sounds of Silence" - an essay by Larry J Solomon, who premiered 4'33" by John Cage in Tucson in 1973.