Happy Birthday John! is an album dedicated to music and silences by John Cage created for the 100th anniversary of the composer in collaboration with the John Cage Trust.

John Cage (Speaker)
Floraleda Sacchi (Harp, Prepared Harp, Toy Harp, Voice, Stopwatch)

I read “Silence” for the first time when I was 15. I fall instantly in love with Cage’s attitude and ideas. He made my life better and I read, play and think about his ideas often. He makes me feel good and tunes me with the environment. Thank you John and happy birthday!
Floraleda Sacchi, 9/5/12.

Tracklist

01. Beauty
02. Primitive, for Prepared Harp
03. In a landscape, for Harp
04. A room, for Prepared Harp
05. Just Sounds
Variations I, for any instrument
06. Variation 1
07. Variation 2
08. Variation 3
09. Variation 4
10. Variation 5
11. Environment
12. Waiting, for Harp
13. Questions
14. 4’33”, for any instrument
15. Hope
16. Dream, for Harp
Suite for Toy Harp
17. No. 1
18. No. 2 Same Speed
19. No. 3 Slower
20. No. 4 Same tempo of No. 3
21. Quiet the Mind
22. Prelude for Meditation, for Prepared Harp
23. Life and Death
24. Postcards from Heaven
25. The music I do not know

REVIEWS

The Independent ★★★★
“There’s something about the Zen-garden aspect of John Cage’s music that lends itself particularly well to these interpretations by the Italian harpist Floraleda Sacchi. The instrument is especially effective in the more obviously “beautiful” pieces such as “Dream” and “In a Landscape”, where the undulating, intertwining figures have the same serene intensity as on piano, but are less overtly soothing, always poised on a sharper edge.
The paperclips and cards inserted between strings for the prepared-harp piece “Primitive” produce a buzzy, less percussive timbre than in prepared-piano versions. There’s also one of the noisiest versions of the famous silent piece “4’33″”, thanks presumably to the breeze blowing through the harpstrings, Aeolian-style.” (Andy Gill)

The harp of Floraleda Sacchi it’s an embodiment of the humility, assuredness and perception of Cage’s own musicology. Each of the works here is meticulously performed; performed with superb expression and involvement. […] This is splendid and important music, though, played in a winning and appealing way. Whatever your (previous) experience of Cage and his world and approach to music, its performance and reception, this is a CD to look closely at. It’s unlikely that you won’t be inspired by much of what it contains.
Classical Net, Mark Sealey full article

Musica

Beautiful record. Indeed!
Peter Michael Hamel