To mark the opening of Rauschenberg Sculpture, Verdigris Ensemble, a Dallas-based immersive vocal ensemble, will perform John Cage's Hymns and Variations, a musical composition for 12 voices. John Cage and Robert Rauschenberg enjoyed a close, creative relationship centered on chance, performance, and breaking down the boundaries between art forms. Jeffrey Lependorf, Executive Director of the John Cage Trust, will introduce this special performance.
Registration is FREE for Nasher Members and students; $10 for non-members (includes museum admission). In-person and open to the public. Advance registration required (limited spaces available).
About Hymns and Variations
John Cage’s Hymns and Variations (1979) invites the listener into a world of possibility. By deconstructing William Billings’ hymns into their most essential components—isolated tones that still faintly echo the harmonic architecture of the originals—Cage offers a kind of musical fork in the road: these sounds could resolve into familiar Billings hymns, or dissolve into pure chance. Influenced by his engagement with Zen Buddhism, Cage shifts attention from the collective to the individual, granting each voice autonomy rather than subsuming it within a choral whole. The result is an ensemble that is not truly a choir, but a constellation of independent voices, each one existing in its own time, its own space. This is reflective of American shapenote singing culture, which is one of the roots of American hymn singing where individual voices sing together, but almost as soloists as opposed to a choir. Whether the audience perceives these voices as blending into harmony or remaining distinct becomes, in the end, a reflection of their own listening.
About Verdigris Ensemble
Founded in 2017, Verdigris Ensemble has quickly established itself as “crème de la crème of the area’s professional choral voices” (Dallas Morning News). The Dallas-based professional choir is dedicated to bringing choral music to the modern audience through technology, new music, and collaboration. Focusing on story-driven musical narratives, Verdigris Ensemble commissions new works, collaborates with interdisciplinary artists, inspires new audiences, and invests in the next generation of musicians.
Verdigris Ensemble has been hailed by audiences and critics for its ability to deeply engage audiences. Its performance of the Pulitzer Prize-winning Anthracite Fields, in collaboration with world-renowned Bang on a Can All-Stars, Julia Wolfe, and SOLUNA Festival, was hailed as “powerful” (Dallas Morning News) and performed with “brilliant cohesion.” (TheaterJones)
Rauschenberg Sculpture is made possible by leading support from the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation. The Nasher Sculpture Center joins an international roster of institutions commemorating the artist’s 100th birthday. Generous support is provided by Frost Bank. Support is also provided by Gianfranco D'Amato, Leo Katz, Katherine Sachs, and the Dallas Tourism Public Improvement District (DTPID).
The Nasher Sculpture Center is supported, in part, by Nasher Members, the Christine P. Gancarz Fund at The Dallas Foundation, The City of Dallas Office of Arts and Culture, Dorothy M. Rickey, TACA, the Von Rydingsvard and Greengard Foundation, and the Texas Commission on the Arts.
About Rauschenberg100
Robert Rauschenberg’s strong conviction that engagement with art can nurture people’s sensibilities as individuals, community members, and citizens was key to his ethos. The Centennial celebrations seek to allow audiences familiar with him and those encountering the artist for the first time to form fresh perspectives about his artwork.
A year of global activities and exhibitions in honor of Rauschenberg’s Centennial reexamines the artist through a contemporary lens, highlighting his enduring influence on generations of artists and advocates for social progress. The Centennial’s activation of the artist’s legacy promotes cross-disciplinary explorations and creates opportunities for critical dialogue.