EVENTS

About the performers:

Marco Benevento is an American pianist, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, and record producer, who’s been a fixture of the New York experimental music rock and jazz scene since 1999. He is the founder and recording engineer of Fred Short, a recording studio in Upstate New York, and a member of the rock groups Benevento/Russo Duo and Joe Russo’s Almost Dead, both of which feature his regular musical collaborator Joe Russo.

Kay Larson is an acclaimed art critic, columnist, editor, and Cage scholar. She began her career in journalism in Cambridge, Massachusetts at The Real Paper, then served as an associate editor at Artnews and an art critic for the Village Voice. She was the art critic for New York Magazine for 14 years and has been a frequent contributor to The New York Times. In 1994, she entered Zen practice at a Buddhist monastery in upstate New York. Larson’s first biography on Cage is titled Where the Heart Beats: John Cage, Zen Buddhism, and the Inner Life of Artists. She is currently working on a second book about Cage.

Norm Magnussen, Impresario, artist, advertising curmudgeon, and founder of the art movement funism.
Norm has this to say about his inspiration for the revival of this extraordinary event:

“In 2008, I was teaching a class at the Woodstock Day School entitled “Art That’s Changed the Way I Look at The World Around Me.” It was so much fun having so many artists and thoughtful individuals come and speak on that topic. David Van Tieghem was one of them. I knew he was going to perform 4’33”. He performed it on the piano, just as David Tudor had so many years before. I knew of the piece but had never heard it performed and did not expect to be so deeply moved by it. Later that day, I started looking into this wonderful piece and discovered two things: one, that its world premiere had been right here in Woodstock; and two, that there were no commemorations of this historic event by any Woodstock organizations! A few years later, I approached WAAM, who had produced the world-premiere concert of this piece in 1952. I asked if they’d like to host a concert and talk about this piece, and they said yes. In 2011, slightly delayed by Hurricane Irene, Mimi Goese and Ben Neill performed and it was so beautiful that I thought that would be it. I would never produce another concert like this. My resolve didn’t last:
2011 – Mimi Goese and Ben Neill
2012 – Vibraphonist extraordinaire Karl Berger
2013 – Paul McMahon and Linda Mary Montano
2014 – Baird Hersey and Prana
2015 – The Clear Light Ensemble
2016 – Tracy Bonham
2017 – Jill Sobule
2018 – David Van Tieghem
2019 – Perry Beekman and Lou Pappas
2020 – Marco Benevento”