After the crust punks, organic farmers, and feminists cleared the performance area (there were a lot of chairs to move after the abortion discussion), Laura Meyer took the stage with just an electric guitar, an amp, and a bottle of water. I was at F.A.D.G.E. Fest — that stands for Feminism, Autonomy, Diversity, and Gender Expression — at the Charter Oak Cultural Center, which has become Hartford's most dependable supplier of progressive and radical entertainment. The festival, which was a joint effort between the Cultural Center and Manchester's Rock Yer Socks booking, offered a variety of workshops and discussions in the afternoon, punctuated by musical interludes.

So when Laura Meyer began performing, she didn't just offer reprieve from the afternoon's intense programming — she made time stand still. It may have been her heavy-lidded eyes, or it may have been the shape of her voice, which carries a splash of the ache and want characteristic of jazz vocalists like Madeleine Peyroux. Either way, her set was heart-rippingly sad. Only a few weeks after seeing a disappointing group of folkies whose electric guitar playing seemed wildly out of place, Meyer provided the antidote. Her playing was detailed and articulate, filled with tiny pauses and tempo changes that helped her wring every drop of anticipation and longing out of her compositions. "I should have brought my acoustic," she said to me after her set. I couldn't disagree more. We've already got enough acoustic solo artists and electric folk-rock bands; it's the electricity that made Meyer's set trenchant, gave it guts.

Have you ever heard of John Cage? An experimental composer, Cage was most notorious for his piece 4'33", in which a pianist sits in front of a piano for as long as the title proscribes, playing nothing. Whether you write him off or take him at face value, Cage was prolific and influential — and if you can bite your tongue long enough to get past the gag reflex most postmodern art seems to inspire, you might even find him fun. Such was the case on Saturday night, when the Hartt Percussion Ensemble presented their Musicircus, a sprawling performance of Cage's percussion compositions that took place in the school's Millard Auditorium, in the auditorium's lobby, and even outside of the building. Among the instruments, there were conch shells that were filled and emptied of water; there were potted cacti hooked up to contact microphones; there were automobile brake drums, muffled and arranged like a gamelan. And everywhere, everywhere there were stopwatches — Sports Authority must've made a killing on this concert.

It's hard to say whether or not the Musicircus was "good," seeing as one of Cage's main intentions for such a performance was to create an absence of intention between performer and audience. The many kids among the audience seemed to understand it intuitively, whereas the adults froze awkwardly when, all throughout the building, the percussionists simultaneously launched into 4'33". The Ensemble did an amazing job of evoking the weirdness, the challenge, and the wonderment that are perhaps the most valuable aspects of Cage's work.