Not to be confused with John Cale.John Milton Cage Jr. (September 5, 1912 – August 12, 1992) was an American composer, music theorist, writer, and artist. A pioneer of indeterminacy in music, electroacoustic music, and non-standard use of musical instruments, Cage was one of the leading figures of the post-war avant-garde. Critics have lauded him as one of the most influential American composers of the 20th century. He was also instrumental in the development of modern dance, mostly through his association with choreographer Merce Cunningham, who was also Cage's romantic partner for most of their lives.Cage is perhaps best known for his 1952 composition 4′33″, which is performed in the absence of deliberate sound; musicians who present the work do nothing aside from being present for the duration specified by the title. The content of the composition is not "four minutes and 33 seconds of silence," as is sometimes assumed, but rather the sounds of the environment heard by the audience during performance. The work's challenge to assumed definitions about musicianship and musical experience made it a popular and controversial topic both in musicology and the broader aesthetics of art and performance. Cage was also a pioneer of the prepared piano (a piano with its sound altered by objects placed between or on its strings or hammers), for which he wrote numerous dance-related works and a few concert pieces. The best known of these is Sonatas and Interludes (1946–48).His teachers included Henry Cowell (1933) and Arnold Schoenberg (1933–35), both known for their radical innovations in music, but Cage's major influences lay in various East and South Asian cultures. Through his studies of Indian philosophy and Zen Buddhism in the late 1940s, Cage came to the idea of aleatoric or chance-controlled music, which he started composing in 1951. The I Ching, an ancient Chinese classic text on changing events, became Cage's standard composition tool for the rest of his life. In a 1957 lecture, Experimental Music, he described music as "a purposeless play" which is "an affirmation of life – not an attempt to bring order out of chaos nor to suggest improvements in creation, but simply a way of waking up to the very life we're living".
September 5, 1912, Los Angeles, California, United States
Died
August 12, 1992, Manhattan, New York City, New York, United States
Place Of Birth
Los Angeles, California, USA
Profession
Composer, Soundtrack, Actor
Education
The New School, Pomona College, Los Angeles High School, University of California, Los Angeles
Nationality
American
Spouse
Xenia Andreyevna Kashevaroff (m. 1935–1945)
Parents
Lucretia "Crete" Harvey, John Milton Cage, Sr.
Awards
Grammy Trustees Award, Guggenheim Fellowship for Creative Arts, US & Canada, Independent Music Award for Best Design - Best Album Art
Movies
Dreams That Money Can Buy, At Land, Poetry in Motion, À travers la forêt, Merce Cunningham: A Lifetime of Dance, John Cage: One 11 with 103, Inside Dope, Sonic Acts: From Stockhausen to Squarepusher, Merce Cunningham, A Legacy of Dance, I Never Promised You a Rose Garden: A Portrait of David Toop ...
Star Sign
Virgo
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Quote
1
I do the cooking, and Merce does the dishes. [in 1989, when asked publicly for the first time about the "nature of his relationship" with choreographer Merce Cunningham, who was also his frequent professional collaborator.
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Fact
1
Inducted into the Percussive Arts Society Hall of Fame in 1982.
2
Life partner of dancer/choreographer Merce Cunningham for fifty years, from 1942 until Cage's death in 1992.
3
Biography in: "The Scribner Encyclopedia of American Lives". Volume 3, 1991-1993, pages 89-91. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 2001.
4
Once performed one of his pieces on "I've Got a Secret," using among other items a grand piano, a duck call, a toaster, a transistor radio, and a bathtub.
5
His most (in)famous composition was 4' 33", consisting of musicans seated in front of their instruments without touching them for three movements, totaling four minutes and thirty three seconds. The sheet music simply reads "TACIT" (silent) for each movement.
6
Did scholarly research into the science of fungology (the study of mushrooms and other fungi).
Composer
Title
Year
Status
Character
Before the Last Drop
2014
Documentary
Surrounded
2013
Documentary short
John Cage's Musicircus
2012
Documentary short
Novembre
2010
Documentary
Um Filme Sem História
2002
Short
John Cage: From Zero
1995
The Revenge of the Dead Indians
1993
Documentary
End of the Art World
1971
Documentary short
Works of Calder
1950
Documentary
Horror Dream
1948
Short
Dreams That Money Can Buy
1947
segment "Discs"
Soundtrack
Title
Year
Status
Character
Gerhard Richter - Painting
2011
Documentary writer: "Music for Marcel Duchamp"
Harald Schmidt
2010
TV Series writer - 1 episode
Shutter Island
2010
writer: "MUSIC FOR MARCEL DUCHAMP" 1947, "ROOT OF AN UNFOCUS" 1944
You Think You Really Know Me: The Gary Wilson Story
2005
Documentary "Six Short Inventions for Seven Instruments" 1934