John Cage

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Lifespan:
September 5, 1912 - August 12, 1992, he died aged 79 and was American.
Birthname:
John Milton Cage Jr..
Snapshot:
An artist with 94 releases, and credited 8 times on others' music. 40 collaborations.

Biography

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John Milton Cage Jr. (September 5, 1912 – August 12, 1992) was an American composer, philosopher, poet, music theorist, artist, printmaker and amateur mycologist and mushroom collector. A pioneer of chance music, electronic 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.

Cage is perhaps best known for his 1952 composition 4′33″, the three movements of which are performed without a single note being played. The content of the composition is meant to be perceived as the sounds of the environment that the listeners hear while it is performed rather than merely as four minutes and thirty three seconds of silence and the piece became one of the most controversial compositions of the twentieth century. Another famous creation of Cage's is the prepared piano (a piano with its sound altered by placing various objects in the strings), for which he wrote numerous dance-related works and a few concert pieces, the best known of which 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 Eastern cultures. Through his studies of Indian philosophy and Zen Buddhism in the late 1940s, Cage came to the idea of 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".

The Biography appearing in this section is attributed to Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Cage. Portions of this Biography may be available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License, version 3.0 or any later version, available at: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/. Additional terms may apply. See Wikipedia Terms of Use for details.

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Genres

Chamber Music, Classical, Techno. Vote on Genres

Discography

(102 releases – 94 under his own name and 8 credits on others' music) Edit
13688376 RELEASE Three Solo for Three Voices Three Solo for Three Voices 2008
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13684572 RELEASE Listen Please try again. Solo for Voice 58: 18 Microtonal Ragas Listen Solo for Voice 58: 18 Microtonal Ragas 2007
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13685971 RELEASE Listen Please try again. Postcard from Heaven for 1-20 Harps Listen Postcard from Heaven for 1-20 Harps 2007
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6318358 RELEASE Listen Please try again. Early Piano Music Listen Early Piano Music 2005
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6864554 RELEASE Sonatas and Interludes, 1946-48 (piano:… 2001
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853109 RELEASE Listen Please try again. American Classics - Music for Prepared Piano, Volume 2 Listen American Classics - Music for Prepared… 2001
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369015 RELEASE Listen Please try again. Variations IV Listen Variations IV 2000
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906988 RELEASE Listen Please try again. Sonatas and Interludes for Prepared Piano Listen Sonatas and Interludes for Prepared Piano 1999
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4138140 RELEASE Works for Percussion, Volume 1: 1935-1941 1999
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2078306 RELEASE Works for Prepared Piano 1998
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7654847 RELEASE Music for Percussion Quartet 1998
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13682549 RELEASE Listen Please try again. Piano Works 2 Listen Piano Works 2 1996
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John Cage

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You might also like

6501 CONTRIBUTOR Philip Glass Philip Glass
6430 CONTRIBUTOR Morton Feldman
7314 CONTRIBUTOR Karlheinz Stockhausen
6866 CONTRIBUTOR Steve Reich Steve Reich
35795 CONTRIBUTOR György Ligeti
15295 CONTRIBUTOR Charles Ives Charles Ives

YouTube videos

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