Overview
- The John‑Cage‑Orgel project in Halberstadt carried out its 17th tone change on Wednesday, August 5, 2026, when organizers fitted an a' pipe into the specially prepared Burchardi Church organ to produce an eight‑tone sound.
- The installation was witnessed by several hundred visitors and accompanied by workshops, concerts and an exhibition that marked the event as a public ritual rather than a conventional concert.
- The organ is set up to sustain sound without a human performer, allowing the composition Organ²/ASLSP to run from 2001 to a planned end in 2640, and project leaders say about four percent of the 639‑year run has been completed after 25 years.
- The John‑Cage‑Orgel‑Stiftung runs the project largely with volunteers and donations, has introduced a vererbbare 'final ticket' priced at €2,640 for the planned 4 September 2640 finale, and has scheduled the next tone change for 5 October 2027.
- The Halberstadt experiment began from Cage’s instruction “as slow as possible,” adapts an organ to indefinite sustain, and is often compared with other long‑duration works such as Jem Finer’s Longplayer to underline differences in human stewardship and technical approach.