As loyal Cola readers know, I'm more prone to low art than highbrow lectures (hello, Flaming Lips; goodbye, Sorrento penthouse symposium ). But somehow, I ended up on Friday night at Gallery 1412, where the (decidedly highbrow) Seattle Percussion Collective was playing several of the (decidedly avant garde) composer John Cage's compositions from the 1950s. (Cage was active from the '30s through the '60s. Check out this and this for an introduction).

After a dual performance of two Cage percussion pieces (one for snare drum, one for frame drum) followed by a performance of his 1988 piece "Five" featuring a French horn, flute, xylophone, piano, and clock (!), the main act began: A simultaneous performance of "45' for a Speaker" (a composition by Cage featuring specific instructions about how and when the speaker should speak each line) and "27'10.554 for a Percussionist"---titled "51;15.657"---featuring pot lids, a wine glass, drums, electronic noisemakers, and cymbals, by the incredibly talented Bonnie Whiting Smith.

Here's an excerpt from the piece, which---in keeping with its title---is just over 51 minutes long. As a fidgety political journalist with the attention span of a fruit fly, I would ordinarily have been happy with a show half as long, but Whiting's stellar performance kept me mesmerized.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/user/bonniewhitingsmith#p/a/u/0/bsyKjXU_NhQ[/youtube]