Saturday, February 7, 2026 at 7:30 PM
The Broad, Los Angeles
GRAMMY-nominated orchestral collective **Wild Up** presents*** The Great Learning, Paragraphs 2 and 7*** by Cornelius Cardew. A ritual of gathering in community through sound, Wild Up members and an ensemble of 30 pre-appointed non-musicians perform two sections of this monumental work in which voices and percussion unfold through listening and response. Creating a vast field of resonance and play, Wild Up musicians will teach the work to a public ensemble, learning through repetitions and echoes, culminating in a performance where music becomes a shared space to embody collective creativity. Composed between 1968 and 1971, Cardew designed *The Great Learning *for a radically open ensemble that blurred lines between trained musicians and amateurs, grounding the piece in inclusivity, process, and duration. Presented in conjunction with the special exhibition, [***Robert Therrien: This is a Story***](https://www.thebroad.org/art/special-exhibitions/robert-therrien-story), *The Great Learning* touches on themes both intimate and monumental, plays with scale to change how we perceive the world, and collapses the distance between the personal and the epic. Therrien’s large-scale sculptures can evoke childlike awe; Cardew’s music sparks collective joy in making something bigger than ourselves. Both artists reveal how ordinary materials—wood, metal, voice, breath—can hold memory and become extraordinary. Photo of Cornelius Cardew; Excerpts of the handwritten score of Cardew's *The Great Learning*