John Cage's Etudes Australes, performed here by pianist Sabine Liebner, launched a series of virtuoso studies born out of the composer's renewed interest in traditional instrumentation and notation. This complex work consists of a total of 32 etudes divided into four books, which John Cage based on maps of the southern night sky. From these maps, locations of planets were selected via chance and translated into pitches, transforming indeterminacy into a new aesthetic category. For Cage's Etudes Australes, the moment of performance is its only moment of reality. Only what is in the present can be heard: in this case, a constantly changing kaleidoscope of sound.