Opening Performance Orchestra - Chess Show: Other Memories of John Cage (2022)

The idea of "Chess Show" originated in the mid-1990s. In 1962, John Cage used for his composition "Atlas Eclipticalis" maps. The aim was to link up to this method of work, while using a real game of chess. Later on, "Chess Show" was performed live five times. The first performance took place in Tel 269; in 2007. To commemorate the centenary of John Cage's birth in 2012, "Chess Show" was played at the "Membra Disjecta for John Cage" exhibition at the DOX gallery in Prague and at the Gallery of Fine Arts in Ostrava in an electronic version for four laptops and a video.

The most recent live performance of "Chess Show" was in 2017 at the Ostrava Days contemporary music festival, with Reinhold Friedl as a soloist. The 64-minute piece uses fragments of Cage's works as sound material, randomly re-arranged and combined. Simultaneously with "Chess Show", Reinhold Friedl performs Cage's "Song Books". The strict structure will be confronted with an unpredictable selection of other works: various piano parts from "Number Pieces", jumbled takes on selection from "Song Books", maybe even "Suite for Toy Piano" and Satie's "Vexations".

The other version of "Chess Show" was created in the studio"Chess Show [4'34" version]", in cooperation with Miroslav Beinhauer, a Czech piano virtuoso, as a guest.