Cage’s compositional structure invites the audience’s laughter as part of the work

Evidence

But I had never experienced a live performance of a Cage piece, much less in a traditional symphony setting with the usual crowd. Instead of the customary rows of musicians dressed in all black, the people onstage were dressed in plain clothes, moving about various props and devices like a typewriter, a set of cards, or a blender. Three vocalists made strange and haunting sounds while someone shuffled cards into a microphone and another walked into the audience to give someone a present—all, in some way, part of the score. As I imagine is the case at many Cage performances, the audience seemed to be shifting in their seats, trying very hard not to laugh, which would be inappropriate in a symphony hall. But the breaking point came when Michael Tilson Thomas, the conductor of the San Francisco Symphony, used the blender to make a smoothie. He took a sip and appeared satisfied. After that, all bets were off, with laughter tumbling down from the seats toward the stage and integrating itself into the piece. — Jenny Odell, How to Do Nothing, 368

Categorization

• SHARE: The detail that Michael Tilson Thomas made a live smoothie mid-piece and the audience’s laughter became part of the score is a memorable anecdote for someone into Cage or contemporary classical.
• XREF: connects to: Cage’s silent piece frames ambient noise as the musical content — Jenny Odell, How to Do Nothing: Resisting the…, 366; Happenings audiences reacted to emotional work with nervous or inappropriate laughter. — J. Hoberman, Everything Is Now: The 1960s New York…, 181
• yield-rescued: below the book’s yield-target cutoff, included anyway for connecting to: Cage’s silent piece frames ambient noise as the musical content — Jenny Odell, How to Do Nothing: Resisting the…, 366; Happenings audiences reacted to emotional work with nervous or inappropriate laughter. — J. Hoberman, Everything Is Now: The 1960s New York…, 181