Flower pots and egg timers: A fresh take on percussion

New York

JOHN Cage once invited Arnold Schoenberg, his teacher, to a performance of percussion music in Los Angeles. Mr Schoenberg said he wasn't free. In fact, Mr Schoenberg added, for emphasis, for such a concert he would not be free "at any time".

Cage's "Third Construction" from 1941 opened the final concert on Friday of "Trilogy", an ambitious and dazzlingly colourful survey of music for percussion ensemble offered by So Percussion. The concerts, presented on three successive evenings under the auspices of the Lincoln Center Festival, drew sizeable crowds to the Stanley H. Kaplan Penthouse, proving that today, finding an audience for percussion-only music is not a problem.