An exploration of current experimental developments in contemporary composition.

Declared the first Happening and later named Theater Piece No. 1, an unnamed performance took place in August 1952 at Black Mountain College that would become one of the most famous events in the college’s history. The ICA has invited five Boston-based artists to reimagine Theater Piece No. 1 by proposing a series of actions that will take place in the ICA galleries and throughout the museum. 

In Music Listens Back, Timothy McCormack explores current experimental developments in contemporary composition through a series of gallery performances inspired by the radical reimagining of musical thought by John Cage.

Timothy McCormack is a composer and PhD candidate at Harvard University who explores the idea that sound has mass, displaces air, and is experienced as a physical object.