John Cage

John Cage

John Cage is considered by many critics to be one of the most influential composers of the 20th century. He pioneered the use of chance and silence in composition, electronic music and physically augmenting instruments for their use in performance. One of Cage's most famous compositions 4'33" is performed by a pianist who takes the stage and doesn't play a single note. Instead, the audience focuses on the sound of their environment for the full 4 minutes and 33 seconds. Cage was also famous for "preparing" pianos by by weighting their strings to produce unusual sounds.

Cage played a role in the evolution of modern dance through his lifelong collaboration with avant-garde choreographer Merce Cunningham. Using elements of chance, Cage would create scores for Cunningham's dances, but the dancers nor Cunningham would hear the score until the night of the performance. The reverse was true as well; Cage wouldn't see the dance for which he was composing until the music and the movement met on stage.

Cage's preoccupation with incorporating chance into his work came from his study of Indian philosophy and Zen Buddhism. The text of the I Ching was an important composition tool for Cage.

In addition to composing, Cage was a prolific writer and visual artist.

Fast Facts

Born: September 5, 1912
Died: August 12, 1992
Teachers included Henry Cowell and Arnold Schoenberg
Went to the Cornish School of the Arts in Seattle, Washington
Associated with Black Mountain College where he served as a faculty member along with Merce Cunningham
Amateur mycologist and mushroom collector
Co-founded the New York Mycological Society

Categories

Entertainment | Music | Classical

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The Mahalo Top 7

Wikipedia: John Cage
PBS American Masters: John Cage
Internet Archive: John Cage Interviewed by Jonathan Cott, 1963 (Audio) (Time 54:00)
WYNC New York Public Radio: A John Cage Web Reliquary
Little Cambridgeport Design Factory: Indeterminacy (Collection of 190 John Cage Stories)
Video: Documentary Footage of John Cage preparing a performance of Speech (Time 5:08)
Video: Excerpt from Performance of John Cage's 4'33" (Time: 1:23)

John Cage Recordings

UbuWeb: John Cage
Arnold Marinissen: Story from Living Room Music
Avante Garde Project: 27'10.554" for a Percussionist
SoundNet: James Tenney plays John Cage
Josh Ronsen: John Cage Sound Files

John Cage Sheet Music and Scores

Sheet Music Plus: John Cage
MusicNotes.com: John Cage

John Cage Paintings and Visual Art

The Mattress Factory Art Museum: John Cage
Carl Solway Gallery: John Cage Editions
Crown Point Press: John Cage
Margarete Roeder Gallery: John Cage
Institut fur Auslandsbeziehungen: Mozart Mix

List of John Cage Compositions

Official Catalogue of Peters Edition: John Cage Works
Karadar Classical Music: The Works of John Cage
The Lied and Art Song Texts Page: John Milton Cage
Andre Chaudron: John Cage List of Works
James Pritchett: A Chronological List of the Musical Works of John Cage
Solomon's Music Resources: John Cage Chronological Catalog of Music

John Cage Images

Google Image Search: John Cage
Yahoo! Image Search: John Cage
Live Search Images: John Cage
Last.fm: John Cage Images
Sterneck.net: John Cage Photos

John Cage Videos

UbuWeb: John Cage
ArtMuseum.net: Performance of Variations V
Electronic Arts Intermix: John Cage
Open Vault: John Cage Performs 4:33 (Time 01:22)
YouTube & Google Video: John Cage Search
YouTube: Merce Cunningham remembers John Cage (Time 09:10)
YouTube: John Cage, "Water Walk" (Time 09:22)

John Cage Profiles

IMDb: John Cage
UbuWeb: John Cage
Naxos: John Cage
BBC: John Cage
Halberstadt: John Cage

John Cage Fan Sites

Stefan Beyst: John Cage's Europas
Paul van Emmerik: A John Cage Compendium
University of Virginia: The Silence Archives
WFMU's Beware of Blog: John Cage

John Cage News

Google News: John Cage
Topix: John Cage News
JohnCage.info: Forthcoming Performances
New York Times: "John Cage, 79, a Minimalist Enchanted With Sound, Dies" (1992)

John Cage Biographies, Articles, and Miscellaneous

Classical Music Pages: John Cage
SUNY Buffalo Electronic Poetry Center: John Cage
Lovely Music Limited: John Cage
Guardian Unlimited: The Music of Chance (2004)
James Pritchett: Writings on John Cage (and Others)
Solomon's Music Resources: The Sounds of Silence
Anarchic Harmony: John Cage Computer Programs

John Cage Merchandise

Amazon.com: John Cage Books | Music
iTunes: John Cage
eBay: John Cage
Google Book Search: Books Authored by John Cage
Yahoo! Shopping: John Cage

Related Pages on Mahalo

Philip Glass | Igor Stravinsky | Frank Zappa | Yoko Ono | Terry Riley | La Monte Young | Steve Reich | Olivier Messiaen | AMM | Claude Debussy | Gustav Mahler | Merce Cunningham | Allen Ginsberg | Aaron Copland | Arnold Schoenberg

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