Cage, John
Dates
- Existence: 1912 - 1992
Biography
John Cage was born in Los Angeles in 1912. He studied composition with Richard Buhlig, Henry Cowell, Adolph Weiss, and Arnold Schoenberg. In 1938 he began working as an accompanist for dance and a teacher at the Cornish School of the Arts in Seattle, Washington. It was here that he first met the dancer Merce Cunningham, with whom he would have a lifelong working relationship. Together they were responsible for a number of radical innovations in musical and choreographic compositions, such as the use of chance operations and the independence of dance and music. Cage was musical adviser for the Merce Cunningham Dance Company until his death in New York City on August 12, 1992.
In the 1940s, Cage moved to New York and joined a group of avant-garde artists, including Cunningham, and painters Robert Rauschenberg and Jasper Johns. During this period, Cage became interested in Eastern thought, particularly Zen, and while his compositions continued his use of carefully structured segments of time, he began to fill them in with materials derived by chance processes. In perhaps the ultimate statement of this aesthetic, he wrote 4′33″, a piece of total silence on the part of the performer into which the random sounds of the world enter. In 1952, at Black Mountain College, he presented a theatrical event considered by many to have been the first Happening.
Cage was the recipient of many awards and honors, beginning in 1949 with a Guggenheim Fellowship and an award from the National Academy of Arts and Letters. He was awarded membership in the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (1978), American Academy of Arts and Letters (1989); named Commandeur de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the French Legion d'Honneur (1982), laureate of the Kyoto Prize given by the Inamori Foundation (1989); and recipient of an honorary doctorate in performing arts the California Institute of the Arts (1986). Cage was the Charles Eliot Norton Professor of Poetry at Harvard University for the academic year 1988-1989.
Cage is the author of many books including Silence, A Year from Monday, M, Empty Words, and X (all published by the Wesleyan University Press). Cage's music is published by C. F. Peters Corporation.
Citation:
Courtesy of the John Cage TrustFound in 5 Collections and/or Records:
John Cage correspondence
John Cage was an American composer and music theorist, and a leading figure of the post-war avant-garde. The Cage Correspondence collection is comprised of correspondence and ephemera including letters, cards, clippings, catalogs, photographs, negatives, cassette tapes, music scores, and art.
John Cage correspondence addenda
This is correspondence that is related to John Cage but was not given to Northwestern by the composer. Letters are between Cage and the person in the folder's title unless otherwise indicated in the container list. Of particular interest are letters from John and Xenia Cage to friends in California that relate their experiences while living in Chicago in the early 1940s.
John Cage Ephemera
The John Cage Ephemera Collection is wide-ranging in scope and includes correspondence, photographs, writings, programs, scores, books, artworks, artifacts, and audio and audiovisual recordings. Most of the collection is not Cage's own work, except for materials advertising his work being performed or exhibited, and some scores, writings, performance materials, and correspondence.
John Cage Notations Project collection
John Cage scrapbooks
The John Cage Scrapbooks are comprised of 9 scrapbooks constructed by John Cage's mother, Lucretia Cage, spanning the years 1916-1954. The scrapbooks contain newspaper clippings, programs, ticket stubs, correspondence, and a few photographs. They document Cage's early life, mostly in photographs, and his early to mid career.
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- Subject: Composers--United States X
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- Correspondence 2