Time and Ensemble Dynamics in Indeterminacy: John Cage’s Concert for Piano and Orchestra

This chapter examines ensemble dynamics and time consciousness in indeterminate music, using John Cage’s Concert for Piano and Orchestra (1957–8) as a case study. Drawing on interviews and observational studies undertaken with the experimental music ensemble Apartment House, I examine the role of temporal indeterminacy in the socio-musical interactions that characterize performance, and its implications for the musicians’ experiences. In doing so, the chapter makes a broader contribution in its consideration of the ways in which issues of authorship and authority are negotiated in such temporal interactions, and how the dynamics of these negotiations present a sociality based on a ‘separate togetherness’, whereby performers play together (out of time) with one another.