View source for John Cage

{{Short description|American avant-garde composer (1912–1992)}}
{{About other people|the composer}}
{{Use mdy dates|date=September 2025}}
{{Use American English|date=November 2014}}
{{Infobox person
| image              = John Cage (1988).jpg
| alt                =
| caption            = Cage in 1988
| birth_name         = John Milton Cage Jr.
| birth_date         = {{Birth date|1912|09|05}}
| birth_place        = Los Angeles, California, U.S.
| death_date         = {{Death date and age|1992|8|12|1912|09|05}}
| death_place        = New York City, U.S.<!-- Only cities per template instructions -->
| known_for          =
| occupation         = {{hlist|Composer|[[music theorist]]|artist|philosopher}}
| alma_mater         = [[Pomona College]]
| years_active       =
| style              =
| partner            = [[Merce Cunningham]]
| spouse             = {{Marriage|[[Xenia Cage|Xenia Andreyevna Kashevaroff]]|1935|1945|end=div}}
| website            =
| signature          = Cage signature.svg
}}

'''John Milton Cage Jr.''' (September 5, 1912 – August 12, 1992) was an American composer and [[music theorist]]. A pioneer of [[indeterminacy in music]], [[electroacoustic music]], and [[Extended technique|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 composers of the 20th century.<ref>{{harvnb|Pritchett|Kuhn|Garrett|2012}} "He has had a greater impact on music in the 20th century than any other American composer."</ref><ref name=obit/><ref>{{Cite book|title=Into the Light of Things: The Art of the Commonplace from Wordsworth to John Cage |last=Leonard |first=George J. |year=1995 |publisher=University of Chicago Press |isbn=978-0-226-47253-9 |page=120|quote=... when Harvard University Press called him, in a 1990 book advertisement, 'without a doubt the most influential composer of the last half-century', amazingly, that was too modest.}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book|title=Greene's Biographical Encyclopedia of Composers |last=Greene |first=David Mason |year=2007 |publisher=Reproducing Piano Roll Fnd. |isbn=978-0-385-14278-6 |page=1407|quote=... John Cage is probably the most influential ... of all American composers to date.}}</ref> 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.{{sfn|Perloff|Junkerman|1994|loc=93}}{{sfn|Bernstein|Hatch|2001|loc=43–45}}

Cage's 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 world|East]] and [[South Asia|South Asian cultures]]. Through his studies of [[Indian philosophy]] and [[Zen Buddhism]] in the late 1940s, Cage came to the idea of [[Aleatoric music|aleatoric]] or [[Indeterminism#Philosophy|chance]]-controlled music, which he started composing in 1951.{{sfn|Lejeunne|2012|loc=185–189}} The ''[[I Ching]]'', an ancient [[Chinese classic text]] and decision-making tool, became Cage's standard composition tool for the rest of his life.<ref>[https://taniachen.com/music-of-changes John Cage – Music of Changes]. By David Ryan, ''taniachen.com''</ref> 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".{{sfn|Cage|1973|loc=12}}

Cage's best known work is the 1952 composition ''[[4′33″]]'', a piece performed in the absence of deliberate sound; musicians who perform the work do nothing but be present for the duration specified by the title. The content of the composition is intended to be the sounds of the environment heard by the audience during performance.{{sfn|Kostelanetz|2003|loc=69–70}}<ref>Reviews cited in {{harvnb|Fetterman|1996|loc=69}}</ref> 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. These include ''[[Sonatas and Interludes]]'' (1946–48).<ref>{{harvnb|Nicholls|2002|loc=80}}: "Most critics agree that ''Sonatas and Interludes'' (1946–48) is the finest composition of Cage's early period."</ref>

==Life==
===1912–1931: Early years===
Cage was born September 5, 1912, at [[Good Samaritan Hospital (Los Angeles)|Good Samaritan Hospital]] in downtown Los Angeles.<ref>Mark Swed (August 31, 2012), [http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/arts/culture/la-et-cm-john-cage,0,3501401.htmlstory John Cage's genius an L.A. story] ''[[Los Angeles Times]]''.</ref> His father, John Milton Cage Sr. (1886–1964), was an inventor, and his mother, [[Crete Cage|Lucretia ("Crete") Harvey]] (1881–1968), worked intermittently as a journalist for the ''[[Los Angeles Times]]''.<ref name="Nicholls, p. 4">{{harvnb|Nicholls|2002|loc=4}}</ref> The family's roots were deeply American: in a 1976 interview, Cage mentioned that [[George Washington]] was assisted by an ancestor named John Cage in the task of surveying the [[Colony of Virginia]].<ref>Cage quoted in {{harvnb|Kostelanetz|2003|loc=1}}. For details on Cage's ancestry, see, for example, {{harvnb|Nicholls|2002|loc=4–6}}.</ref> Cage described his mother as a woman with "a sense of society" who was "never happy",<ref name="statement-web">{{cite web | url=http://www.newalbion.com/artists/cagej/autobiog.html | title=An Autobiographical Statement | publisher=Southwest Review | year=1991 | author=Cage, John | access-date=March 14, 2007 | url-status=dead | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070226123315/http://www.newalbion.com/artists/cagej/autobiog.html | archive-date=February 26, 2007 | df=mdy-all }}</ref> while his father is perhaps best characterized by his inventions: sometimes idealistic, such as a diesel-fueled [[submarine]] that gave off exhaust bubbles, the senior Cage being uninterested in an undetectable submarine;<ref name="Nicholls, p. 4"/> others revolutionary and against the scientific norms, such as the "electrostatic field theory" of the universe.{{efn|1=Cage quoted in {{harvnb|Kostelanetz|2003|loc=1–2}}. Cage mentions a working model of the universe that his father had built, and that the scientists who saw it could not explain how it worked and refused to believe it.}} John Cage Sr. taught his son that "if someone says 'can't' that shows you what to do." In 1944–45, Cage wrote two small [[character piece]]s dedicated to his parents: ''Crete'' and ''Dad''. The latter is a short lively piece that ends abruptly, while "Crete" is a slightly longer, mostly melodic contrapuntal work.<ref>Recording and notes: ''John Cage – Complete Piano Music Vol. 7: Pieces 1933–1950''. Steffen Schleiermacher (piano). MDG 613 0789-2.</ref>

When Cage was 18 months old, he ate two or three [[strychnine]] tablets. "At first the baby's life was despaired of," an article stated, but "a stomach pump was administered with success".<ref>[https://www.therestisnoise.com/2025/08/cages-close-call.html "Saving baby Cage"]</ref>

Cage's first experiences with music were from private piano teachers in the [[Greater Los Angeles]] area and several relatives, particularly his aunt Phoebe Harvey James who introduced him to the piano music of the 19th century. He received first piano lessons when he was in the fourth grade at school, but although he liked music, he expressed more interest in [[sight reading]] than in developing virtuoso piano technique, and apparently was not thinking of composition.{{sfn|Kostelanetz|2003|loc=2}} During high school, one of his music teachers was [[Fannie Charles Dillon]].<ref name=LAT01/> By 1928, though, Cage was convinced that he wanted to be a writer. He graduated that year from [[Los Angeles High School]] as a [[valedictorian]],{{sfn|Nicholls|2002|loc=21}} having also in the spring given a prize-winning speech at the [[Hollywood Bowl]] proposing a day of quiet for all Americans. By being "hushed and silent," he said, "we should have the opportunity to hear what other people think," anticipating ''4′33″'' by more than thirty years.<ref>{{cite magazine |url=https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2010/10/04/searching-for-silence |title=Searching for Silence: John Cage's art of noise|first=Alex|last=Ross|author-link=Alex Ross (music critic)|date=September 27, 2010|magazine=[[The New Yorker]]|access-date=July 21, 2020}}</ref>

Cage enrolled at [[Pomona College]] in [[Claremont, California|Claremont]] as a [[theology]] major in 1928. At Pomona, he encountered the work of the artist [[Marcel Duchamp]] via Professor José Pijoan, of the writer [[James Joyce]] via Don Sample, of the philosopher [[Ananda Coomaraswamy]] and of the composer [[Henry Cowell]].<ref name=LAT01/> In 1930, he dropped out of Pomona, having come to believe that "college was of no use to a writer"<ref name="Kostelanetz, p. 4">{{harvnb|Kostelanetz|2003|loc=4}}</ref> after an incident described in his 1991 autobiographical statement:

{{blockquote|I was shocked at college to see one hundred of my classmates in the library all reading copies of the same book. Instead of doing as they did, I went into the stacks and read the first book written by an author whose name began with Z. I received the highest grade in the class. That convinced me that the institution was not being run correctly. I left.<ref name="statement-web" />}}

Cage persuaded his parents that a trip to Europe would be more beneficial to a future writer than college studies.{{sfn|Nicholls|2002|loc=8}} He subsequently [[hitchhiked]] to [[Galveston]] and sailed to [[Le Havre]], where he took a train to Paris.{{sfn|Perloff|Junkerman|1994|loc=79}} Cage stayed in Europe for some 18 months, trying his hand at various forms of art. First, he studied [[Gothic architecture|Gothic]] and [[Greek architecture]], but decided he was not interested enough in architecture to dedicate his life to it.<ref name="Kostelanetz, p. 4"/> He then took up painting, poetry and music. It was in Europe that, encouraged by his teacher [[Lazare Lévy]],<ref>John Cage, National Inter-Collegiate Arts Conference, [[Vassar College]], Poughkeepsie (New York), February 28, 1948.</ref> he first heard the music of contemporary composers (such as [[Igor Stravinsky]] and [[Paul Hindemith]]) and finally got to know the music of [[Johann Sebastian Bach]], which he had not experienced before.

After several months in Paris, Cage's enthusiasm for America was revived after he read [[Walt Whitman]]'s ''[[Leaves of Grass]]''—he wanted to return immediately, but his parents, with whom he regularly exchanged letters during the entire trip, persuaded him to stay in Europe for a little longer and explore the continent.{{sfn|Perloff|Junkerman|1994|loc=80}} Cage started traveling, visiting various places in France, Germany, and Spain, as well as [[Capri]] and, most importantly, [[Majorca]], where he started composing.{{sfn|Nicholls|2002|loc=22}} His first compositions were created using dense mathematical formulas, but Cage was displeased with the results and left the finished pieces behind when he left.<ref name="Perloff, Junkerman, p. 81">{{harvnb|Perloff|Junkerman|1994|loc=81}}</ref> Cage's association with theater also started in Europe: during a walk in [[Seville]] he witnessed, in his own words, "the multiplicity of simultaneous visual and audible events all going together in one's experience and producing enjoyment."<ref>Cage quoted in {{harvnb|Perloff|Junkerman|1994|loc=81}}.</ref>

===1931–1936: Apprenticeship===
[[File:Arnold_Schoenberg_la_1948.jpg|thumb|Cage studied with composer [[Arnold Schoenberg]] from 1933 to 1935.]]
Cage returned to the United States in 1931.<ref name="Perloff, Junkerman, p. 81" /> He went to [[Santa Monica, California]], where he made a living partly by giving small, private lectures on contemporary art. He got to know various important figures of the Southern California art world, including arts patron [[Galka Scheyer]]<ref name="Kostelanetz, p. 4" /> and his later composition teacher [[Richard Buhlig]].<ref name="Pritchett, Grove">{{harvnb|Pritchett|Kuhn|Garrett|2012}}</ref> By 1933, Cage had decided to concentrate on music rather than painting. "The people who heard my music had better things to say about it than the people who looked at my paintings had to say about my paintings", Cage later explained.<ref name="Kostelanetz, p. 4" /> In 1933, he sent some of his compositions to Henry Cowell; the reply was a "rather vague letter",<ref>Cage quoted in {{harvnb|Nicholls|2002|loc=24}}.</ref> in which Cowell suggested that Cage study with [[Arnold Schoenberg]]—Cage's musical ideas at the time included composition based on a 25-[[tone row]], somewhat similar to Schoenberg's [[twelve-tone technique]].{{sfn|Kostelanetz|2003|loc=61}} Cowell also advised that, before approaching Schoenberg, Cage should take some preliminary lessons, and recommended [[Adolph Weiss]], a former Schoenberg pupil.{{sfn|Nicholls|2002|loc=24}} Weiss had been asked by Schoenberg to be his assistant and to train students who might not be ready for Schoenberg's teaching.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Hicks |first=Michael |year=1990 |title=John Cage's Studies with Schoenberg |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/3051946 |journal=American Music |volume=8 |issue=2 |page=127 |doi=10.2307/3051946 |jstor=3051946 |issn=0734-4392|url-access=subscription }}</ref>

Following Cowell's advice, Cage traveled to New York City in 1933 and started studying with Weiss as well as taking lessons from Cowell himself at [[The New School]].<ref name="Pritchett, Grove" /> He supported himself financially by taking up a job washing walls at a [[YWCA|YWCA (Young Women's Christian Association)]] in [[Brooklyn]].<ref name="Kostelanetz, p. 7">{{harvnb|Kostelanetz|2003|loc=7}}</ref> Cage's routine during that period was apparently very tiring, with just four hours of sleep on most nights, and four hours of composition every day starting at 4&nbsp;am.<ref name="Kostelanetz, p. 7" /><ref name="Pritchett, p. 9">{{harvnb|Pritchett|1993|loc=[https://books.google.com/books?id=riHo22Hi8QAC&pg=PA9 9]}}</ref> Several months later, still in 1933, Cage became sufficiently good at composition to approach Schoenberg.{{efn|1=Different sources give different details of their first meeting. {{harvnb|Pritchett|Kuhn|Garrett|2012}}, in Grove, imply that Cage met Schoenberg in New York City: "Cage followed Schoenberg to Los Angeles in 1934". In a 1976 interview quoted in {{harvnb|Kostelanetz|2003|loc=5}}, Cage mentions that he "went to see him [Schoenberg] in Los Angeles."}} He could not afford Schoenberg's price, and when he mentioned it, the older composer asked whether Cage would devote his life to music. After Cage replied that he would, Schoenberg offered to tutor him free of charge.<ref>This conversation was recounted many times by Cage himself: see ''[[Silence: Lectures and Writings|Silence]]'', p.&nbsp;261; ''[[A Year from Monday]]'', p.&nbsp;44; interviews quoted in {{harvnb|Kostelanetz|2003|loc=5, 105; etc.}}.</ref>

Cage studied with Schoenberg in California: first at [[University of Southern California]] and then at [[University of California, Los Angeles]], as well as privately.<ref name="Pritchett, Grove"/> The older composer became one of the biggest influences on Cage, who "literally worshipped him",<ref name="Kostelanetz, p. 6">{{harvnb|Kostelanetz|2003|loc=6}}</ref> particularly as an example of how to live one's life being a composer.<ref name="Pritchett, p. 9"/> The vow Cage gave, to dedicate his life to music, was apparently still important some 40 years later, when Cage "had no need for it [i.e. writing music]", he continued composing partly because of the promise he gave.<ref>Cage interview quoted in {{harvnb|Kostelanetz|2003|loc=105}}.</ref> Schoenberg's methods and their influence on Cage are well documented by Cage himself in various lectures and writings. Particularly well-known is the conversation mentioned in the 1958 lecture ''Indeterminacy'':

{{blockquote|After I had been studying with him for two years, Schoenberg said, "In order to write music, you must have a feeling for harmony." I explained to him that I had no feeling for harmony. He then said that I would always encounter an obstacle, that it would be as though I came to a wall through which I could not pass. I said, "In that case I will devote my life to beating my head against that wall."{{sfn|Cage|1973|loc=260}}}}

Cage studied with Schoenberg for two years, but although he admired his teacher, he decided to leave after Schoenberg told the assembled students that he was trying to make it impossible for them to write music. Much later, Cage recounted the incident: "... When he said that, I revolted, not against him, but against what he had said. I determined then and there, more than ever before, to write music."<ref name="Kostelanetz, p. 6"/> Although Schoenberg was not impressed with Cage's compositional abilities during these two years, in a later interview, where he initially said that none of his American pupils were interesting, he further stated in reference to Cage: "There was one ... of course he's not a composer, but he's an inventor—of genius."<ref name="Kostelanetz, p. 6"/> Cage would later adopt the "inventor" moniker and deny that he was in fact a composer.<ref name=Broyles>Broyles M. (2004).''Mavericks and Other Traditions in American Music'', Yale University Press, New Haven & London, (p. 177).</ref>

At some point in 1934–35, during his studies with Schoenberg, Cage was working at his mother's arts and crafts shop, where he met artist [[Xenia Andreyevna Kashevaroff]]. She was an [[Alaska]]n-born daughter of a Russian priest; her work encompassed fine [[bookbinding]], sculpture and [[collage]]. Although Cage was involved in relationships with Don Sample and with architect [[Rudolph Schindler (architect)|Rudolph Schindler]]'s wife [[Pauline Gibling Schindler|Pauline]],<ref name=LAT01/> when he met Xenia, he fell in love immediately. Cage and Kashevaroff were married in the desert at [[Yuma, Arizona]], on June 7, 1935.<ref>For details on Cage's first meeting with Xenia, see {{harvnb|Kostelanetz|2003|loc=7–8}}; for details on Cage's homosexual relationship with Don Sample, an American he met in Europe, as well as details on the Cage-Kashevaroff marriage, see {{harvnb|Perloff|Junkerman|1994|loc=81, 86}}.</ref>

[[File:Prepared_piano_board_Neumann.jpg|left|thumb|An example of a [[prepared piano]]]]

=== 1937–1949: Modern dance and Eastern influences ===
{{See also|Works for prepared piano by John Cage}}
The newly-married couple first lived with Cage's parents in [[Pacific Palisades, Los Angeles|Pacific Palisades]], then moved to Hollywood.{{sfn|Perloff|Junkerman|1994|loc=86}} During 1936–38, Cage changed jobs multiple times, including to one that started his lifelong association with modern dance: dance accompanist at the University of California, Los Angeles. He produced music for choreographies and at one point taught a course on "Musical Accompaniments for Rhythmic Expression" at UCLA with his aunt Phoebe.<ref name="Revill 1993, 55">{{harvnb|Revill|1993|loc=55}}</ref> It was during that time that Cage first started experimenting with unorthodox instruments, such as household items, metal sheets, and so on. This was inspired by [[Oskar Fischinger]], who told Cage that "everything in the world has a spirit that can be released through its sound." Although Cage did not share the idea of spirits, these words inspired him to begin exploring the sounds produced by hitting various non-musical objects.<ref name="Revill 1993, 55" />{{sfn|Kostelanetz|2003|loc=43}}

In 1938, on Cowell's recommendation, Cage drove to San Francisco to find employment and to seek out fellow Cowell student and composer [[Lou Harrison]]. According to Cowell, the two composers had a shared interest in percussion and dance and would likely hit it off. Indeed, upon meeting the two immediately established a strong bond and began a working relationship that continued for several years. Harrison soon helped Cage to secure a faculty position at [[Mills College]], teaching the same program as at UCLA and collaborating with choreographer [[Marian van Tuyl]]. Several famous dance groups were present, and Cage's interest in modern dance grew further.<ref name="Revill 1993, 55" /> After several months, he left and moved to [[Seattle]], Washington, where he found work as composer and accompanist for choreographer [[Bonnie Bird]] at the [[Cornish College of the Arts]]. The Cornish School years proved to be a particularly important period in Cage's life. Aside from teaching and working as accompanist, Cage organized a percussion ensemble that toured the West Coast and brought the composer his first fame. His reputation was enhanced further with the invention of the [[prepared piano]]—a piano which has had its sound altered by objects placed on, beneath, or between the strings—in 1940. This concept was originally intended for a performance staged in a room too small to include a full percussion ensemble. It was also at the Cornish School that Cage met several people who became lifelong friends, such as painter [[Mark Tobey]] and dancer [[Merce Cunningham]]. The latter was to become Cage's lifelong romantic partner and artistic collaborator.

Cage left Seattle in the summer of 1941 after the painter [[László Moholy-Nagy]] invited him to teach at the Chicago School of Design (what later became the [[IIT Institute of Design]]). The composer accepted partly because he hoped to find opportunities to organize a center for experimental music that were not available in Seattle. These opportunities did not materialize. Cage taught at the Chicago School of Design and worked as accompanist and composer at the [[University of Chicago]]. At one point, his reputation as percussion composer landed him a commission from the [[Columbia Broadcasting System]] to compose a soundtrack for a radio play by [[Kenneth Patchen]]. The result, ''The City Wears a Slouch Hat'', was received well, and Cage deduced that more important commissions would follow. Hoping to find these, he left Chicago for New York City in the spring of 1942.

In New York, the Cages first stayed with painter [[Max Ernst]] and [[Peggy Guggenheim]]. Through them, Cage met important artists such as [[Piet Mondrian]], [[André Breton]], [[Jackson Pollock]],  [[Marcel Duchamp]], and many others. Guggenheim was very supportive: the Cages could stay with her and Ernst for any length of time, and she offered to organize a concert of Cage's music at the opening of her gallery, which included paying for transportation of Cage's percussion instruments from Chicago. After she learned that Cage had secured a concert at the [[Museum of Modern Art|Museum of Modern Art (MoMA)]], Guggenheim withdrew all support, and, even after the ultimately successful MoMA concert, Cage was left homeless, unemployed, and penniless. The commissions he hoped for did not happen. He and Xenia spent the summer of 1942 with dancer [[Jean Erdman]] and her husband [[Joseph Campbell]]. Without the percussion instruments, Cage again turned to prepared piano, producing a substantial body of works for performances by various choreographers, including Merce Cunningham, who had moved to New York City several years earlier. Cage and Cunningham eventually became romantically involved, and Cage's marriage, already breaking up during the early 1940s, ended in divorce in 1945. Cunningham remained Cage's partner for the rest of his life. Cage also countered the lack of percussion instruments by writing, on one occasion, for voice and closed piano: the resulting piece, ''[[The Wonderful Widow of Eighteen Springs]]'' (1942), quickly became popular and was performed by the celebrated duo of [[Cathy Berberian]] and [[Luciano Berio]].<ref>Reinhardt, Lauriejean. ''John Cage's "The Wonderful Widow of Eighteen Springs"'', 7. [http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/collections/moldenhauer/moldtoc.html Available online].</ref> In 1944, he appeared in [[Maya Deren]]'s ''[[At Land]]'', a 15-minute silent experimental film.

Like his personal life, Cage's artistic life went through a crisis in the mid-1940s. The composer was experiencing a growing disillusionment with the idea of music as means of communication: the public rarely accepted his work, and Cage himself, too, had trouble understanding the music of his colleagues. In early 1946, Cage agreed to tutor [[Gita Sarabhai]], an Indian musician who came to the US to study Western music. In return, he asked her to teach him about Indian music and philosophy.{{sfn|Cage|1973|loc=127}} Cage also attended, in the late 1940s and early 1950s, [[D. T. Suzuki]]'s lectures on [[Zen Buddhism]],{{sfn|Revill|1993|loc=108}} and read further the works of [[Ananda Coomaraswamy|Coomaraswamy]].<ref name="Pritchett, Grove" /> The first fruits of these studies were works inspired by Indian concepts: ''[[Sonatas and Interludes]]'' for prepared piano, ''[[String Quartet in Four Parts]]'', and others. Cage accepted the goal of music as explained to him by Sarabhai: "to sober and quiet the mind, thus rendering it susceptible to divine influences".{{sfn|Cage|1973|loc=158}}

Early in 1946, his former teacher [[Richard Buhlig]] arranged for Cage to meet Berlin-born pianist [[Grete Sultan]], who had escaped from Nazi persecution to New York in 1941.{{sfn|Bredow|2012}} They became close, lifelong friends, and Cage later dedicated part of his ''[[Music for Piano (Cage)|Music for Piano]]'' and his monumental piano cycle ''[[Etudes Australes]]'' to her. In 1949, he received a [[Guggenheim Fellowship]].<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.gf.org/fellows/john-cage/|title= John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation: John Cage|website=[[Guggenheim Fellowship]]|access-date=March 21, 2024}}</ref>

===1950s: Discovering chance===
[[File:Persconferentie componist Morton Feldman in concertgebouw Amsterdam in verband m, Bestanddeelnr 928-6142.jpg|thumb|Composer [[Morton Feldman]] in 1976]]
After a 1949 performance at [[Carnegie Hall]], New York, Cage received a grant from the [[John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation|Guggenheim Foundation]], which enabled him to make a trip to Europe, where he met composers such as [[Olivier Messiaen]] and [[Pierre Boulez]]. More important was Cage's chance encounter with [[Morton Feldman]] in New York City in early 1950. Both composers attended a [[New York Philharmonic]] concert, where the orchestra performed [[Anton Webern]]'s ''[[Symphony (Webern)|Symphony]]'', followed by a piece by [[Sergei Rachmaninoff]]. Cage felt so overwhelmed by Webern's piece that he left before the Rachmaninoff; and in the lobby, he met Feldman, who was leaving for the same reason.{{sfn|Revill|1993|loc=101}} The two composers quickly became friends; some time later Cage, Feldman, [[Earle Brown]], [[David Tudor]] and Cage's pupil [[Christian Wolff (composer)|Christian Wolff]] came to be referred to as "the [[New York School (art)|New York school]]".{{sfn|Pritchett|1993|loc=105}}{{sfn|Nicholls|2002|loc=101}}

In early 1951, Wolff presented Cage with a copy of the ''[[I Ching]]''{{sfn|Kostelanetz|2003|loc=68}}—a [[Chinese classic text]] which describes a symbol system used to identify order in chance events. This version of the ''I Ching'' was the first complete English translation and had been published by Wolff's father, [[Kurt Wolff (publisher)|Kurt Wolff]] of [[Pantheon Books]] in 1950. The ''I Ching'' is commonly used for [[divination]], but for Cage it became a tool to compose using chance.{{sfn|Cage|1973|loc=60}} To compose a piece of music, Cage would come up with questions to ask the ''I Ching''; the book would then be used in much the same way as it is used for divination. For Cage, this meant "imitating nature in its manner of operation".{{sfn|Pritchett|1993|loc=97}}{{sfn|Revill|1993|loc=91}} His lifelong interest in sound itself culminated in an approach that yielded works in which sounds were free from the composer's will:

{{blockquote|When I hear what we call music, it seems to me that someone is talking. And talking about his feelings, or about his ideas of relationships. But when I hear traffic, the sound of traffic—here on Sixth Avenue, for instance—I don't have the feeling that anyone is talking. I have the feeling that sound is acting. And I love the activity of sound ... I don't need sound to talk to me.<ref>John Cage, in an interview with Miroslav Sebestik, 1991. From: ''Listen'', documentary by Miroslav Sebestik. ARTE France Développement, 2003.</ref>}}

Although Cage had used chance on a few earlier occasions, most notably in the third movement of ''Concerto for Prepared Piano and Chamber Orchestra'' (1950–51),{{sfn|Pritchett|1993|loc=71}} the ''I Ching'' opened new possibilities in this field for him. The first results of the new approach were ''[[Imaginary Landscape|Imaginary Landscape No. 4]]'' for 12 radio receivers, and ''[[Music of Changes]]'' for piano. The latter work was written for David Tudor,{{sfn|Pritchett|1993|loc=78}} whom Cage met through Feldman—another friendship that lasted until Cage's death.{{efn|1=Recent research has shown that Cage may have met [[David Tudor|Tudor]] almost a decade earlier, in 1942, through Jean Erdman: {{cite web| url=http://www.artsjournal.com/postclassic/2008/09/cleaning_up_a_life.html | title=Cleaning Up a Life |website=artsjournal.com| year=2008 |last=Gann|first=Kyle|author-link=Kyle Gann| access-date=August 4, 2009}}}} Tudor premiered most of Cage's works until the early 1960s, when he stopped performing on the piano and concentrated on composing music. The ''I Ching'' became Cage's standard tool for composition: he used it in practically every work composed after 1951, and eventually settled on a computer algorithm that calculated numbers in a manner similar to throwing coins for the ''I Ching''.[[File:King Wen (I Ching).svg|thumb|upright=1.15|[[I Ching divination]] involves obtaining a hexagram by [[random generation]] (such as [[Coin flipping|tossing coins]]), then reading the chapter associated with that hexagram.|left]]

Despite the fame ''Sonatas and Interludes'' earned him, and the connections he cultivated with American and European composers and musicians, Cage was quite poor. Although he still had an apartment at 326 Monroe Street (which he had occupied since around 1946), his financial situation in 1951 worsened so much that while working on ''Music of Changes'', he prepared a set of instructions for Tudor as to how to complete the piece in the event of his death.{{sfn|Revill|1993|loc=142}} Nevertheless, Cage managed to survive and maintained an active artistic life with lectures and performances.

In 1952–1953, he completed another mammoth project—the ''[[Williams Mix]]'', a piece of [[tape music]], which [[Earle Brown]] and [[Morton Feldman]] helped to put together.{{sfn|Revill|1993|loc=143–149}} Also in 1952, Cage composed the piece that became his best-known and most controversial creation: ''[[4′33″]]''. The score instructs the performer not to play the instrument during the entire duration of the piece—four minutes, thirty-three seconds—and is meant to be perceived as consisting of the sounds of the environment that the listeners hear while it is performed. Cage had conceived of "a silent piece" years earlier, but was reluctant to write it down; indeed, the premiere (given by Tudor on August 29, 1952, at [[Woodstock, New York]]) caused an uproar in the audience.{{sfn|Revill|1993|loc=166}} The reaction to ''4′33″'' was just a part of the larger picture: on the whole, it was the adoption of chance procedures that had disastrous consequences for Cage's reputation. The press, which used to react favorably to earlier percussion and prepared piano music, ignored his new works, and many valuable friendships and connections were lost. Pierre Boulez, who used to promote Cage's work in Europe, was opposed to Cage's particular approach to the use of chance, and so were other composers who came to prominence during the 1950s, such as [[Karlheinz Stockhausen]].<ref>{{harvnb|Revill|1993|loc=174}}</ref>

During this time, Cage was also teaching at the avant-garde [[Black Mountain College]] just outside [[Asheville, North Carolina]]. Cage taught at the college in the summers of 1948 and 1952 and was in residence the summer of 1953. While at Black Mountain College in 1952, he organized what has been called the first "[[happening]]" (see discussion below) in the United States, later titled ''Theatre Piece No. 1'', a multi-layered, multi-media performance event staged the same day as Cage conceived it that "that would greatly influence 1950s and 60s artistic practices". In addition to Cage, the participants included Cunningham and Tudor.<ref>{{cite web | url=http://www.jdwelch.net/writing/TheOtherFabFour.pdf | title=The Other Fab Four: Collaboration and Neo-dada: a plan for an exhibition weblog | access-date=May 31, 2014 | author=Welch, J.D. | year=2008 | pages=5–8 | archive-date=December 25, 2022 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221225100607/https://jdwelch.net/writing/TheOtherFabFour.pdf | url-status=dead }}</ref>

From 1953 onward, Cage was busy composing music for modern dance, particularly Cunningham's dances (Cage's partner adopted chance too, out of fascination for the movement of the human body), as well as developing new methods of using chance, in a series of works he referred to as ''The Ten Thousand Things''. In the summer of 1954 he moved out of New York and settled in [[Gate Hill Cooperative]], a community in [[Stony Point, New York]], where his neighbors included David Tudor, [[M. C. Richards]], [[Karen Karnes]], [[Stan VanDerBeek]], and [[Sari Dienes]]. The composer's financial situation gradually improved: in late 1954 he and Tudor were able to embark on a European tour. From 1956 to 1961 Cage taught classes in experimental composition at The New School, and from 1956 to 1958 he also worked as an art director and designer of typography.<ref name=compendium>{{cite web| url=http://www.xs4all.nl/~cagecomp/ | title=A John Cage Compendium | publisher=Paul van Emmerik | year=2009 | author=Emmerik, Paul van | access-date=August 6, 2009}}</ref> Among the works completed during the last years of the decade were ''Concert for Piano and Orchestra'' (1957–58), a seminal work in the history of [[graphic notation (music)|graphic notation]],<ref>{{cite book|last1=Iddon|first1=Martin|last2=Thomas|first2=Philip|title=John Cage's Concert for Piano and Orchestra|publisher=Oxford University Press|year=2020|isbn=978-0-19-093847-5}}</ref> and ''[[Variations (Cage)|Variations I]]'' (1958).

===1960s: Fame===
[[File:John_Cage_in_Harvard_University's_Anechoic_Chamber.jpg|thumb|300x300px|Cage sitting in [[Harvard University]]'s anechoic chamber, by which he discovered that absolute silence does not exist, inspiring him to compose ''[[4′33″]]'']]
Cage was affiliated with [[Wesleyan University]] and collaborated with members of its music department from the 1950s until his death in 1992. At the university, the philosopher, poet, and professor of classics [[Norman O. Brown]] befriended Cage, an association that proved fruitful to both.<ref>{{Cite web |title=John Cage Remembers Alan Chadwick |url=http://alan-chadwick.org/html%20pages/personal_memories/john_cage/john-cage--alan-chadwick.html |access-date=June 19, 2024 |website=alan-chadwick.org}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |title=Norman O. Brown papers |url=https://archives.wesleyan.edu/repositories/sca/resources/norman_o_brown_papers |website=Wesleyan University}}</ref> In 1960 the composer was appointed a fellow on the faculty of the Center for Advanced Studies (now the Center for Humanities) in the Liberal Arts and Sciences at Wesleyan,<ref>{{cite web | title=Guide to the Center for Advanced Studies Records, 1958–1969 | url=http://www.wesleyan.edu/libr/schome/FAs/ce1000-137.html | publisher=Wesleyan University | access-date=September 4, 2010 | url-status=dead | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170314083709/http://www.wesleyan.edu/libr/schome/FAs/ce1000-137.html | archive-date=March 14, 2017 | df=mdy-all }}</ref> where he started teaching classes in experimental music. In October 1961, [[Wesleyan University Press]] published ''[[Silence: Lectures and Writings|Silence]]'', a collection of Cage's lectures and writings on a wide variety of subjects, including the famous ''Lecture on Nothing'' that was composed using a complex time length scheme, much like some of Cage's music. ''Silence'' was Cage's first book of six but it remains his most widely read and influential.{{efn|1=Technically, it was his second, for Cage previously collaborated with Kathleen Hoover on a biographical volume on [[Virgil Thomson]] which was published in 1959.}}<ref name="Pritchett, Grove" /> In the early 1960s Cage began his lifelong association with [[Edition Peters|C.F. Peters Corporation]]. Walter Hinrichsen, the president of the corporation, offered Cage an exclusive contract and instigated the publication of a catalog of Cage's works, which appeared in 1962.<ref name="compendium" />

Edition Peters soon published a large number of scores by Cage, and this, together with the publication of ''Silence'', led to much greater prominence for the composer than ever before—one of the positive consequences of this was that in 1965, [[Betty Freeman]] set up an annual grant for living expenses for Cage which continued until his death.<ref>{{cite web | url=http://www.newmusicbox.org/article.nmbx?id=846 | title=The Many Views of Betty Freeman: Betty Freeman's Commissions | publisher=NewMusicBox | year=2000 | access-date=August 8, 2009 | url-status=dead | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110604143441/http://www.newmusicbox.org/article.nmbx?id=846 | archive-date=June 4, 2011 | df=mdy-all }}</ref> By the mid-1960s, Cage was receiving so many commissions and requests for appearances that he was unable to fulfill them. This was accompanied by a busy touring schedule; consequently Cage's compositional output from that decade was scant.<ref name="Pritchett, Grove" /> After the orchestral ''Atlas Eclipticalis'' (1961–62), a fully notated work based on [[star charts]], Cage gradually shifted to, in his own words, "music (not composition)." The score of ''[[0'00"|0′00″]]'', completed in 1962, originally comprised a single sentence: "In a situation provided with maximum amplification, perform a disciplined action", and in the first performance the disciplined action was Cage writing that sentence. The score of ''[[Variations (Cage)|Variations III]]'' (1962) abounds in instructions to the performers, but makes no references to music, musical instruments, or sounds.

Many of the ''Variations'' and other 1960s pieces were in fact "[[happening]]s", an art form established by Cage and his students in late 1950s. Cage's "Experimental Composition" classes at The New School have become legendary as an American source of [[Fluxus]], an international network of artists, composers, and designers. The majority of his students had little or no background in music. Most were artists. They included [[Jackson Mac Low]], [[Allan Kaprow]], [[Al Hansen]], [[George Brecht]], [[Ben Patterson]], and [[Dick Higgins]], as well as many others Cage invited unofficially. Famous pieces that resulted from the classes include George Brecht's ''Time Table Music'' and Al Hansen's ''Alice Denham in 48 Seconds''.<ref>{{Cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1992/12/24/arts/review-music-sem-evokes-john-cage-as-teacher.html|title=S.E.M. Evokes John Cage as Teacher|first=Alex|last=Ross|author-link=Alex Ross (music critic)|work=[[The New York Times]]|date=December 4, 1992|access-date=October 6, 2010}}</ref> As set forth by Cage, "happenings" were theatrical events that abandon the traditional concept of stage-audience and occur without a sense of definite duration. Instead, they are left to chance. They have a minimal script, with no plot. In fact, a "happening" is so-named because it occurs in the present, attempting to arrest the concept of passing time. Cage believed that theater was the closest route to integrating art and real life. The term "happenings" was coined by Allan Kaprow, one of his students, who defined it as a genre in the late fifties. Cage met Kaprow while on a mushroom hunt with [[George Segal (artist)|George Segal]] and invited him to join his class. In following these developments Cage was strongly influenced by [[Antonin Artaud]]'s seminal treatise ''[[The Theatre and Its Double]]'', and the happenings of this period can be viewed as a forerunner to the ensuing Fluxus movement. In October 1960, [[Mary Bauermeister]]'s [[Cologne]] studio hosted a joint concert by Cage and the video artist [[Nam June Paik]] (Cage's friend and mentee), who in the course of his performance of ''Etude for Piano'' cut off Cage's tie and then poured a bottle of shampoo over the heads of Cage and Tudor.<ref>{{cite book | last = Silverman | first = Kenneth |author-link=Kenneth Silverman |title =Begin Again: A Biography of John Cage | publisher = Alfred A. Knopf | year = 2010 | pages=198 }}</ref>

In 1967, Cage's book ''[[A Year from Monday]]'' was first published by Wesleyan University Press. Cage's parents died during the decade: his father in 1964,{{sfn|Revill|1993|loc=208}} and his mother in 1969. Cage had their ashes scattered in [[Ramapo Mountains]], near Stony Point, and asked for the same to be done to him after his death.<ref name="Revill 228">{{harvnb|Revill|1993|loc=228}}</ref>

===1969–1987: New departures===
Cage's work from the sixties features some of his largest and most ambitious, not to mention socially utopian pieces, reflecting the mood of the era yet also his absorption of the writings of both [[Marshall McLuhan]], on the effects of new media, and [[R. Buckminster Fuller]], on the power of technology to promote social change. ''[[HPSCHD]]'' (1969), a gargantuan and long-running multimedia work made in collaboration with [[Lejaren Hiller]], incorporated the mass superimposition of seven harpsichords playing chance-determined excerpts from the works of Cage, Hiller, and a potted history of canonical classics, with 52 tapes of computer-generated sounds, 6,400 slides of designs, many supplied by [[NASA]], and shown from sixty-four slide projectors, with 40 motion-picture films. The piece was initially rendered in a five-hour performance at the [[University of Illinois]] in 1969, in which the audience arrived after the piece had begun and left before it ended, wandering freely around the auditorium in the time for which they were there.<ref>{{cite book | last = Silverman | first = Kenneth | title =Begin Again: A Biography of John Cage | publisher = Alfred A. Knopf | year = 2010 | pages=242–243 }}</ref>

{{listen
| type         = music
| image        = none
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| filename     = Cage-cheap-imitation-exceprt.ogg
| title        = Opening bars of ''Cheap Imitation'' (1969)
| description  = Performed by the composer in 1976, shortly before he had to retire from performing
}}
Also in 1969, Cage produced the first fully notated work in years: ''[[Cheap Imitation]]'' for piano. The piece is a chance-controlled reworking of [[Erik Satie]]'s ''[[Socrate]]'', and, as both listeners and Cage himself noted, openly sympathetic to its source. Although Cage's affection for Satie's music was well-known, it was highly unusual for him to compose a personal work, one in which the composer ''is'' present. When asked about this apparent contradiction, Cage replied: "Obviously, ''Cheap Imitation'' lies outside of what may seem necessary in my work in general, and that's disturbing. I'm the first to be disturbed by it."<ref>Pritchett, James. 2004. "[http://www.rosewhitemusic.com/cage/texts/CageImitationsTransformations.html John Cage: Imitations/Transformations]". In James Pritchett, ''[http://www.rosewhitemusic.com/cage/index.html Writings on John Cage (and others)]''. (Online resource. Retrieved June 5, 2008)</ref> Cage's fondness for the piece resulted in a recording—a rare occurrence, since Cage disliked making recordings of his music—made in 1976.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Tone |first=Yasunao |year=2003 |title=John Cage and Recording |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/1513443 |journal=Leonardo Music Journal |volume=13 |pages=11–15 |doi=10.1162/096112104322750728 |jstor=1513443 |url-access=subscription }}</ref> Overall, ''Cheap Imitation'' marked a major change in Cage's music: he turned again to writing fully notated works for traditional instruments, and tried out several new approaches, such as [[improvisation]], which he previously discouraged, but was able to use in works from the 1970s, such as ''Child of Tree'' (1975).<ref>{{Cite web |title=John Cage |url=https://www.pas.org/about/hall-of-fame/john-cage |access-date=April 20, 2024 |website=pas.org |date=February 20, 2024 |archive-date=April 20, 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240420033132/https://www.pas.org/about/hall-of-fame/john-cage |url-status=dead }}</ref>

''Cheap Imitation'' became the last work Cage performed in public himself. [[Arthritis]] had troubled Cage since 1960, and by the early 1970s his hands were painfully swollen and rendered him unable to perform.{{sfn|Revill|1993|loc=247}} Nevertheless, he still played ''Cheap Imitation'' during the 1970s,{{sfn|Fetterman|1996|loc=191}} before finally having to give up performing. Preparing manuscripts also became difficult: before, published versions of pieces were done in Cage's calligraphic script; now, manuscripts for publication had to be completed by assistants. Matters were complicated further by David Tudor's departure from performing in the early 1970s. Tudor decided to concentrate on composition instead, and so Cage, for the first time in two decades, had to rely on other performers and their respective abilities. Such performers included [[Grete Sultan]], [[Paul Zukofsky]], [[Margaret Leng Tan]], and many others. Aside from music, Cage continued writing books of prose and poetry ([[mesostic]]s). ''[[M (John Cage book)|M]]'' was first published by Wesleyan University Press in 1973. In January 1978 Cage was invited by [[Kathan Brown]] of [[Crown Point Press]] to engage in printmaking, and Cage would go on to produce series of prints every year until his death; these, together with some late [[watercolor]]s, constitute the largest portion of his extant visual art. In 1979 Cage's ''[[Empty Words]]'' was first published by Wesleyan University Press.

===1987–1992: Final years and death===
{{See also|Number Pieces}}
[[File:Componist John Cage , kop, Bestanddeelnr 934-3585.jpg|thumb|Cage in 1988]]In 1987, Cage completed a piece called ''Two'', for flute and piano, dedicated to performers [[Roberto Fabbriciani]] and Carlo Neri. The title referred to the number of performers needed; the music consisted of short notated fragments to be played at any tempo within the indicated time constraints. Cage went on to write some forty such ''[[Number Pieces]]'', as they came to be known, usually employing a variant of the same technique; one of the last was ''Eighty'' (1992, premiered in Munich on October 28, 2011). The process of composition in many of the later Number Pieces, was simple selection of pitch range and pitches from that range, using chance procedures;<ref name="Pritchett, Grove" /> the music has been linked to Cage's anarchic leanings.{{sfn|Haskins|2004}} ''[[One11|One<sup>11</sup>]]'' (i.e., the eleventh piece for a single performer), completed in early 1992, was Cage's first and only foray into film. Cage conceived his last musical work with [[Michael Bach (musician)|Michael Bach]]: "ONE13" for violoncello with [[curved bow]] and three loudspeakers, which was published years later.

Another new direction, also taken in 1987, was opera: Cage produced five operas, all sharing the same title ''Europera'', between 1987–91. ''Europeras I'' and ''II'' require greater resources than ''III'', ''IV'', and ''V'', which are on a chamber scale. They were commissioned by the [[Oper Frankfurt]] to celebrate his 75th birthday, and according to music critic [[Mark Swed]], they took "an enormous effort on the composer's part–requiring two full-time assistants and two computers humming day and night."<ref name=":0" /> These pieces caused quite a stir in the world of opera at the time with their unconventional methods for staging and sequencing. Many standard pieces of operatic repertoire were used, but not in any preset order; rather, they were selected by chance, meaning no two performances were exactly alike. Many of those who were to be a part of these performances refused to participate, citing the impossibility of the requests Cage was making. Days before ''[[Europeras|Europeras I and II]]'' were to be premiered, Frankfurt's opera house was damaged by fire, setting into motion a series of setbacks leading to a theatrical run met with mixed reactions, including a performance so bad that Cage penned a letter to his musicians criticizing their interpretation of his composition.<ref name=":0">{{Cite journal |last=Kuhn |first=Laura D. |year=1994 |title=Synergetic Dynamics in John Cage's 'Europeras 1 & 2' |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/742497 |journal=The Musical Quarterly |volume=78 |issue=1 |pages=131–148 |doi=10.1093/mq/78.1.131 |jstor=742497 |issn=0027-4631|url-access=subscription }}</ref>[[File:John Cage and Michael Bach in Assissi 1992.jpg|thumb|upright=0.7|Cage (left) and [[Michael Bach (musician)|Michael Bach]] in Assisi, Italy, 1992|left]]In the course of the 1980s, Cage's health worsened progressively. He suffered not only from arthritis, but also from [[sciatica]] and [[arteriosclerosis]]. He had a stroke that left the movement of his left leg restricted, and, in 1985, broke an arm. During this time, Cage pursued a [[macrobiotic diet]].{{sfn|Revill|1993|loc=295}} Nevertheless, ever since arthritis started plaguing him, the composer was aware of his age, and, as biographer David Revill observed, "the fire which he began to incorporate in his visual work in 1985 is not only the fire he has set aside for so long—the fire of passion—but also fire as transitoriness and fragility." On August 11, 1992, while preparing evening tea for himself and Cunningham, Cage had another stroke. He was taken to [[St. Vincent's Hospital (Manhattan)|St. Vincent's Hospital]] in Manhattan, where he died on the morning of August 12.<ref>[[Kostelanetz, Richard]]. 2000. ''John Cage: Writer: Selected Texts'', xvii. Cooper Square Press, 2nd edition. {{ISBN|978-0-8154-1034-8}}</ref> He was 79.<ref name="obit">{{Cite news|title=John Cage, 79, a Minimalist Enchanted With Sound, Dies|first=Allan|last=Kozinn|author-link=Allan Kozinn|url=https://www.nytimes.com/learning/general/onthisday/bday/0905.html|work=[[The New York Times]]|date=August 13, 1992|access-date=July 21, 2007}}</ref>

According to his wishes, Cage's body was cremated and his ashes scattered in the [[Ramapo Mountains]], near [[Stony Point, New York|Stony Point]], New York, at the same place where he had scattered the ashes of his parents.<ref name="Revill 228" /> The composer's death occurred only weeks before a celebration of his 80th birthday organized in Frankfurt by composer [[Walter Zimmermann]] and musicologist Stefan Schaedler.<ref name="obit" /> The event went ahead as planned, including a performance of the ''Concert for Piano and Orchestra'' by David Tudor and [[Ensemble Modern]]. Merce Cunningham died of natural causes in July 2009.<ref>{{cite news|title=Dance great Cunningham dies at 90 |url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/arts_and_culture/8171036.stm |date=July 28, 2009 |access-date=September 3, 2009 |work=[[BBC News]] }}</ref>

{{Clear}}

==Music==
{{See also|List of compositions by John Cage}}

===Early works, rhythmic structure, and new approaches to harmony===
Cage's first completed pieces have been lost. According to the composer, the earliest works were very short pieces for piano, composed using complex mathematical procedures and lacking in "sensual appeal and expressive power."{{sfn|Pritchett|1993|loc=6}} Cage then started producing pieces by improvising and writing down the results, until Richard Buhlig stressed to him the importance of structure. Most works from the early 1930s, such as ''[[Sonata for Clarinet (Cage)|Sonata for Clarinet]]'' (1933) and ''Composition for 3 Voices'' (1934), are highly [[Chromaticism|chromatic]] and betray Cage's interest in [[counterpoint]]. Around the same time, the composer also developed a type of a tone row technique with 25-note rows.{{sfn|Pritchett|1993|loc=7}} After studies with Schoenberg, who never taught [[dodecaphony]] to his students, Cage developed another tone row technique, in which the row was split into short motives, which would then be repeated and transposed according to a set of rules. This approach was first used in ''Two Pieces for Piano'' ({{circa|1935}}), and then, with modifications, in larger works such as ''Metamorphosis'' and ''Five Songs'' (both 1938).

[[File:Sonatas-interludes-sonata3graph.gif|upright=1.35|thumb|right|Rhythmic proportions in ''Sonata III'' of ''Sonatas and Interludes'' for prepared piano]]
Soon after Cage started writing percussion music and music for modern dance, he started using a technique that placed the rhythmic structure of the piece into the foreground. In ''[[Imaginary Landscape No. 1]]'' (1939) there are four large sections of 16, 17, 18, and 19 bars, and each section is divided into four subsections, the first three of which were all 5 bars long. ''[[Construction (Cage)|First Construction (in Metal)]]'' (1939) expands on the concept: there are five sections of 4, 3, 2, 3, and 4 units respectively. Each unit contains 16 bars, and is divided the same way: 4 bars, 3 bars, 2 bars, etc. Finally, the musical content of the piece is based on sixteen motives.{{sfn|Nicholls|2002|loc=71–74}} Such "nested proportions", as Cage called them, became a regular feature of his music throughout the 1940s. The technique was elevated to great complexity in later pieces such as ''Sonatas and Interludes'' for prepared piano (1946–48), in which many proportions used non-integer numbers (1¼, ¾, 1¼, ¾, 1½, and 1½ for ''Sonata I'', for example),{{sfn|Pritchett|1993|loc=29–33}} or ''[[A Flower]]'', a song for voice and closed piano, in which two sets of proportions are used simultaneously.<ref>Notes in the score: ''A Flower''. [[Edition Peters]] 6711 (1960)</ref>

In late 1940s, Cage started developing further methods of breaking away with traditional harmony. For instance, in ''String Quartet in Four Parts'' (1950) Cage first composed a number of ''gamuts'': chords with fixed instrumentation. The piece progresses from one ''gamut'' to another. In each instance the ''gamut'' was selected only based on whether it contains the note necessary for the melody, and so the rest of the notes do not form any directional harmony.<ref name="Pritchett, Grove" /> ''Concerto for prepared piano'' (1950–51) used a system of charts of durations, dynamics, melodies, etc., from which Cage would choose using simple geometric patterns.<ref name="Pritchett, Grove" /> The last movement of the concerto was a step towards using chance procedures, which Cage adopted soon afterwards.<ref>{{cite journal|last=Pritchett|first=James|date=Fall 1988|title=From Choice to Chance: John Cage's Concerto for Prepared Piano|journal=[[Perspectives of New Music]]|volume=26|number=1|pages=50–81|doi=10.2307/833316 |jstor=833316 }}</ref>

===Chance===
A chart system was also used (along with nested proportions) for the large piano work ''Music of Changes'' (1951), only here material would be selected from the charts by using the ''I Ching''. All of Cage's music since 1951 was composed using chance procedures, most commonly using the ''I Ching''. For example, works from ''Music for Piano'' were based on paper imperfections: the imperfections themselves provided pitches, coin tosses and ''I Ching'' hexagram numbers were used to determine the accidentals, clefs, and playing techniques.{{sfn|Pritchett|1993|loc=94}} A whole series of works was created by applying chance operations, i.e. the ''I Ching'', to [[star chart]]s: ''Atlas Eclipticalis'' (1961–62), and a series of etudes: ''Etudes Australes'' (1974–75), ''[[Freeman Etudes]]'' (1977–90), and ''[[Etudes Boreales]]'' (1978).<ref name="Nicholls 2002, 139">{{harvnb|Nicholls|2002|loc=139}}</ref> Cage's etudes are all extremely difficult to perform, a characteristic dictated by Cage's social and political views: the difficulty would ensure that "a performance would show that the impossible is not impossible"{{sfn|Perloff|Junkerman|1994|loc=140}}—this being Cage's answer to the notion that solving the world's political and social problems is impossible.<ref>Pritchett, James. 1994. "[http://www.rosewhitemusic.com/cage/texts/freeman.html John Cage: Freeman Etudes]", CD liner notes to: John Cage, ''Freeman Etudes (Books 1 and 2)'' ([[Irvine Arditti]], violin), Mode 32. (Accessed August 14, 2008)</ref> Cage described himself as an anarchist, and was influenced by [[Henry David Thoreau]].{{efn|1=Cage self-identified as an anarchist in a 1985 interview: "I'm an anarchist. I don't know whether the adjective is pure and simple, or philosophical, or what, but I don't like government! And I don't like institutions! And I don't have any confidence in even good institutions."<ref>[http://www.ubu.com/papers/cage_montague_interview.html "John Cage at Seventy: An Interview"] by [[Stephen Montague]]. ''[[American Music (journal)|American Music]]'', Summer 1985. Via [[UbuWeb]]. Retrieved May 24, 2007.</ref>}}
[[File:Freeman-etudes-18.gif|center|thumb|566x566px|Beginning of Etude No. 18, from Book II of ''[[Freeman Etudes]]'']]
Another series of works applied chance procedures to pre-existing music by other composers: ''Cheap Imitation'' (1969; based on Erik Satie), ''Some of "The Harmony of Maine"'' (1978; based on [[Supply Belcher|Belcher]]), and ''Hymns and Variations'' (1979). In these works, Cage would borrow the rhythmic structure of the originals and fill it with pitches determined through chance procedures, or just replace some of the originals' pitches.{{sfn|Pritchett|1993|loc=197}} Yet another series of works, the so-called ''Number Pieces'', all completed during the last five years of the composer's life, make use of ''time brackets'': the score consists of short fragments with indications of when to start and to end them (e.g. from anywhere between 1′15" and 1′45", and to anywhere from 2′00" to 2′30").{{sfn|Pritchett|1993|loc=200}}

Cage's method of using the ''I Ching'' was far from simple randomization. The procedures varied from composition to composition, and were usually complex. For example, in the case of ''Cheap Imitation'', the exact questions asked to the ''I Ching'' were these:
# Which of the seven modes, if we take as modes the seven [[scale (music)|scale]]s beginning on white notes and remaining on white notes, which of those am I using?
# Which of the twelve possible chromatic [[Transposition (music)|transposition]]s am I using?
# For this phrase for which this transposition of this mode will apply, which note am I using of the seven to imitate the note that Satie wrote?{{sfn|Kostelanetz|2003|loc=84}}
In another example of late music by Cage, ''Etudes Australes'', the compositional procedure involved placing a transparent strip on the star chart, identifying the pitches from the chart, transferring them to paper, then asking the ''I Ching'' which of these pitches were to remain single, and which should become parts of aggregates (chords), and the aggregates were selected from a table of some 550 possible aggregates, compiled beforehand.<ref name="Nicholls 2002, 139" />{{sfn|Kostelanetz|2003|loc=92}}

Finally, some of Cage's works, particularly those completed during the 1960s, feature instructions to the performer, rather than fully notated music. The score of ''Variations I'' (1958) presents the performer with six transparent squares, one with points of various sizes, five with five intersecting lines. The performer combines the squares and uses lines and points as a [[Cartesian coordinate system|coordinate system]], in which the lines are axes of various characteristics of the sounds, such as lowest frequency, simplest overtone structure, etc.{{sfn|Pritchett|1993|loc=136}} Some of Cage's graphic scores (e.g. ''Concert for Piano and Orchestra'', ''Fontana Mix'' (both 1958)) present the performer with similar difficulties. Still other works from the same period consist just of text instructions. The score of ''0′00″'' (1962; also known as ''4′33″ No. 2'') consists of a single sentence: "In a situation provided with maximum amplification, perform a disciplined action." The first performance had Cage write that sentence.{{sfn|Pritchett|1993|loc=144–146}}

''Musicircus'' (1967) simply invites the performers to assemble and play together. The first ''Musicircus'' featured multiple performers and groups in a large space who were all to commence and stop playing at two particular time periods, with instructions on when to play individually or in groups within these two periods. The result was a mass superimposition of many different musics on top of one another as determined by chance distribution, producing an event with a specifically theatric feel. Many Musicircuses have subsequently been held, and continue to occur even after Cage's death. The [[English National Opera]] (ENO) became the first opera company to hold a Cage Musicircus on March 3, 2012, at the [[London Coliseum]].<ref>{{cite web|first=Doundou|last= Tchil |url=http://classical-iconoclast.blogspot.com/2012/01/eno-presents-john-cage-musicircus.html |title= ENO presents John Cage Musicircus|website=Classical-iconoclast.blogspot.com |date=January 20, 2012 |access-date=December 5, 2013}}</ref><ref>{{cite news|first=John |last=Lewis |url=https://www.theguardian.com/music/2012/mar/04/john-cage-musicircus-review-eno |title= John Cage's Musicircus – review |newspaper=[[The Guardian]]|date= March 4, 2012|access-date=September 5, 2014}}</ref> The ENO's Musicircus featured artists including [[Led Zeppelin]] bassist [[John Paul Jones (musician)|John Paul Jones]] and composer [[Michael Finnissy]] alongside ENO music director [[Edward Gardner (conductor)|Edward Gardner]], the ENO Community Choir, ENO Opera Works singers, and a collective of professional and amateur talents performing in the bars and front of house at London's Coliseum Opera House.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.eno.org/see-whats-on/productions/production-page.php?&itemid=2007 |title=eno.org |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130510014145/http://www.eno.org/see-whats-on/productions/production-page.php?&itemid=2007 |archive-date=May 10, 2013 }}</ref>

This concept of circus was to remain important to Cage throughout his life and featured strongly in such pieces as ''[[Roaratorio|Roaratorio, an Irish circus on Finnegans Wake]]'' (1979), a many-tiered rendering in sound of both his text ''Writing for the Second Time Through Finnegans Wake'', and traditional musical and field recordings made around Ireland. The piece was based on James Joyce's famous novel, ''[[Finnegans Wake]]'', which was one of Cage's favorite books, and one from which he derived texts for several more of his works.

===Improvisation===
Since chance procedures were used by Cage to eliminate the composer's and the performer's likes and dislikes from music, Cage disliked the concept of improvisation, which is inevitably linked to the performer's preferences. In a number of works beginning in the 1970s, he found ways to incorporate improvisation. In ''Child of Tree'' (1975) and ''Branches'' (1976) the performers are asked to use certain species of plants as instruments, for example the [[amplified cactus|cactus]]. The structure of the pieces is determined through the chance of their choices, as is the musical output; the performers had no knowledge of the instruments. In ''Inlets'' (1977) the performers play large water-filled [[conch]] shells – by carefully tipping the shell several times, it is possible to achieve a bubble forming inside, which produced sound. Yet, as it is impossible to predict when this would happen, the performers had to continue tipping the shells – as a result the performance was dictated by pure chance.{{sfn|Kostelanetz|2003|loc=92–96}}

==Visual art, writings, and other activities==
[[File:Cage-variations-iii-14-small.jpg|thumb|upright=1.2|''Variations III, No. 14'', a 1992 print by Cage from a series of 57]]
Although Cage started painting in his youth, he gave it up to concentrate on music instead. His first mature visual project, ''Not Wanting to Say Anything About Marcel'', dates from 1969. The work comprises two [[lithograph]]s and a group of what Cage called ''plexigrams'': silk screen printing on [[plexiglas]] panels. The panels and the lithographs all consist of bits and pieces of words in different typefaces, all governed by chance operations.{{sfn|Nicholls|2002|loc=112–113}}

From 1978 to his death, Cage worked at Crown Point Press, producing series of prints every year. The earliest project completed there was the etching ''Score Without Parts'' (1978), created from fully notated instructions, and based on various combinations of drawings by Henry David Thoreau. This was followed, the same year, by ''Seven Day Diary'', which Cage drew with his eyes closed, but which conformed to a strict structure developed using chance operations. Finally, Thoreau's drawings informed the last works produced in 1978, ''Signals''.{{sfn|Nicholls|2002|loc=113–115}}

Between 1979 and 1982, Cage produced a number of large series of prints: ''Changes and Disappearances'' (1979–80), ''On the Surface'' (1980–82), and ''Déreau'' (1982). These were the last works in which he used engraving.{{sfn|Nicholls|2002|loc=115–118}} In 1983 he started using various unconventional materials such as cotton batting, foam, etc., and then used stones and fire (''Eninka'', ''Variations'', ''Ryoanji'', etc.) to create his visual works.{{sfn|Nicholls|2002|loc=118–122}} In 1988–1990, he produced watercolors at the Mountain Lake Workshop.

In the 1980s, Cage participated in the Mountain Lake Workshop, an experimental art symposium directed by Virginia Tech professor [[Ray Kass]] in southwestern Virginia. There, he produced a series of collaborative visual works that extended his interest in chance operations, including large-scale watercolor and print projects. Beginning in 1983, he worked with watercolors using methods such as controlled pours, chance-derived grids, and painting around stones with brushes made from feathers, techniques that emphasized indeterminacy within a structured process.<ref>{{cite web |title=Collection Close-Up: John Cage |url=https://www.menil.org/exhibitions/300-collection-close-up-john-cage |website=The Menil Collection |access-date=July 27, 2025}}</ref> The workshops allowed Cage to apply his musical concepts to visual art, and this period became a notable part of his late visual art practice. It is documented in ''The Mountain Lake Symposium and Workshop: Art in Locale'' (2018).<ref>{{cite book |last=Kass |first=Ray |title=The Mountain Lake Symposium and Workshop: Art in Locale |publisher=Virginia Tech Publishing |year=2018}}</ref>

The only film Cage produced was one of the Number Pieces, ''One<sup>11</sup>'', commissioned by composer and film director [[Henning Lohner]] who worked with Cage to produce and direct the 90-minute monochrome film. It was completed only weeks before his death in 1992. ''One<sup>11</sup>'' consists entirely of images of chance-determined play of electric light. It premiered in Cologne, Germany, on September 19, 1992, accompanied by the live performance of the orchestra piece ''103''.

Throughout his adult life, Cage was also active as lecturer and writer. Some of his lectures were included in several books he published, the first of which was ''Silence: Lectures and Writings'' (1961). ''Silence'' included not only simple lectures, but also texts executed in experimental layouts, and works such as ''Lecture on Nothing'' (1949), which were composed in rhythmic structures. Subsequent books also featured different types of content, from lectures on music to poetry—Cage's mesostics.

Cage was also an avid amateur [[mycologist]].<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.artsy.net/article/artsy-editorial-experimental-artist-john-cage-obsessed-mushrooms|title=Why Experimental Artist John Cage Was Obsessed with Mushrooms|first=Sarah|last=Gottesman|date=January 3, 2017|website=Artsy.net|access-date=March 10, 2020}}</ref> In the fall of 1969, he gave a lecture on the subject of edible mushrooms at the [[University of California, Davis]] as part of his "Music in Dialogue" course.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://archives.otherminds.org/index.php/Detail/objects/1657|title=Source: Program No. 7: John Cage on Mushrooms|website=Other Minds Archives|access-date=February 12, 2024}}</ref> He co-founded the [[New York Mycological Society]] with four friends,<ref name="compendium" /> and his mycology collection is presently housed by the Special Collections department of the McHenry Library at the [[University of California, Santa Cruz]].

==Reception and influence==
[[File:Young Julia Wolfe with composer John Cage, David Lang, and Michael Gordon.jpg|thumb|Cage with composers [[David Lang (composer)|David Lang]], [[Julia Wolfe]], and [[Michael Gordon (composer)|Michael Gordon]] in 1982]]
Cage's pre-chance works, particularly pieces from the late 1940s such as ''Sonatas and Interludes'', earned critical acclaim: the ''Sonatas'' were performed at Carnegie Hall in 1949. Cage's adoption of chance operations in 1951 cost him a number of friendships and led to numerous criticisms from fellow composers. Adherents of [[serialism]] such as Pierre Boulez and Karlheinz Stockhausen dismissed indeterminate music; Boulez, who was once on friendly terms with Cage, criticized him for "adoption of a philosophy tinged with Orientalism that masks a basic weakness in compositional technique."<ref>[[Boulez, Pierre]]. 1964. "Alea". ''[[Perspectives of New Music]]'', vol. 3, no. 1 (Autumn–Winter 1964), 42–53</ref> Prominent critics of serialism, such as the Greek composer [[Iannis Xenakis]], were similarly hostile towards Cage: for Xenakis, the adoption of chance in music was "an abuse of language and ... an abrogation of a composer's function."<ref>Bois, Mario, and Xenakis, Iannis. 1980. ''The Man and his Music: A Conversation with the Composer and a Description of his Works'', 12. Greenwood Press Reprint.</ref>

An article by teacher and critic [[Michael Steinberg (music critic)|Michael Steinberg]], ''Tradition and Responsibility'', criticized avant-garde music in general:

{{blockquote|The rise of music that is totally without social commitment also increases the separation between composer and public, and represents still another form of departure from tradition. The cynicism with which this particular departure seems to have been made is perfectly symbolized in John Cage's account of a public lecture he had given: "Later, during the question period, I gave one of six previously prepared answers regardless of the question asked. This was a reflection of my engagement in Zen." While Mr. Cage's famous silent piece [i.e. ''4′33″''], or his ''Landscapes'' for a dozen radio receivers may be of little interest as music, they are of enormous importance historically as representing the complete abdication of the artist's power.<ref>[[Michael Steinberg (music critic)|Steinberg, Michael]]. 1962. "Tradition and Responsibility". ''[[Perspectives of New Music]]'' 1, 154–159.</ref>}}

Cage's aesthetic position was criticized by, among others, prominent writer and critic [[Douglas Kahn]]. In his 1999 book ''Noise, Water, Meat: A History of Sound in the Arts'', Kahn acknowledged the influence Cage had on culture, but noted that "one of the central effects of Cage's battery of silencing techniques was a silencing of the social."<ref>[[Douglas Kahn|Kahn, Douglas]]. 1999. ''Noise, Water, Meat: A History of Sound in the Arts'', 165. Cambridge, Massachusetts: The MIT Press.</ref>

While much of Cage's work remains controversial,<ref>{{Cite web |title=4′33" {{!}} Experimental Music, Avant-Garde, Silence {{!}} Britannica |url=https://www.britannica.com/topic/433-by-Cage |access-date=December 30, 2023 |website=Encyclopædia Britannica |language=en}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |last=Keats |first=Jonathon |title=Famous For Composing The Most Controversial Music Of The 20th Century, John Cage Was Even More Subversive With Mushrooms |url=https://www.forbes.com/sites/jonathonkeats/2020/07/24/john-cage-mushroom/ |access-date=December 30, 2023 |website=Forbes |language=en}}</ref> his influence on countless composers, artists, and writers is notable.<ref>{{cite book|author=Larry Shiner|year=2001|title=[[The Invention of Art]]: A Cultural History|at=14|location=Chicago|publisher=University of Chicago Press|isbn=978-0-226-75342-3}}</ref> After Cage introduced chance procedures to his works, Boulez, Stockhausen, and Xenakis remained critical, yet all adopted chance procedures in some of their works (although in a much more restricted manner); and Stockhausen's piano writing in his later ''[[Klavierstücke (Stockhausen)#Klavierstücke XII–XIX: formula composition and Licht|Klavierstücke]]'' was influenced by Cage's ''Music of Changes'' and David Tudor.<ref>[[Robin Maconie|Maconie, Robin]]. 1976. ''The Works of Karlheinz Stockhausen'', with a foreword by Karlheinz Stockhausen, 141–144. London and New York: Oxford University Press. {{ISBN|978-0-19-315429-2}}</ref> Other composers who adopted chance procedures in their works included [[Witold Lutosławski]],<ref>{{Cite news |last=Kozinn |first=Allan |date=February 9, 1994 |title=Witold Lutoslawski, 81, Is Dead; Modern, Yet Melodic, Composer |language=en-US |work=The New York Times |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1994/02/09/obituaries/witold-lutoslawski-81-is-dead-modern-yet-melodic-composer.html |access-date=December 30, 2023 |issn=0362-4331}}</ref> [[Mauricio Kagel]],<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Mikawa |first1=Makoto |title=The theatricalisation of Mauricio Kagel's 'Antithese' (1962) and its development in collaboration with Alfred Feussner |journal=The Musical Times |year=2015 |volume=156 |issue=1932 |pages=81–90 |jstor=24615812 }}</ref> and many others. Music in which some of the composition and/or performance is left to chance was labelled ''aleatoric music''—a term popularized by Pierre Boulez. [[Helmut Lachenmann]]'s work was influenced by Cage's work with [[extended technique]]s.<ref>Ryan, David. 1999. ''Interview with Helmut Lachenmann'', p. 21. ''[[Tempo (journal)|Tempo]]'', New Series, no. 210. (October 1999), pp. 20–24.</ref>

Cage's rhythmic structure experiments and his interest in sound influenced a number of composers, starting at first with his close American associates Earle Brown, Morton Feldman, and Christian Wolff (and other American composers, such as [[La Monte Young]], [[Terry Riley]], [[Steve Reich]], and [[Philip Glass]]), and then spreading to Europe.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Piekut |first1=Benjamin |title=Indeterminacy, Free Improvisation, and the Mixed Avant-Garde |journal=Journal of the American Musicological Society |date=December 2014 |volume=67 |issue=3 |pages=769–824 |doi=10.1525/jams.2014.67.3.769 }}</ref><ref>{{cite magazine |last1=Ross |first1=Alex |title=John Cage's Art of Noise |url=https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2010/10/04/searching-for-silence |magazine=The New Yorker |date=September 27, 2010 }}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |date=December 21, 2023 |title=John Cage {{!}} American Composer & Avant-Garde Innovator {{!}} Britannica |url=https://www.britannica.com/biography/John-Cage |access-date=December 30, 2023 |website=Encyclopædia Britannica |language=en}}</ref> For example, many composers of the English experimental school acknowledge his influence:<ref>{{Cite web |date=September 4, 2022 |title=John Cage's Music of Chance and Change |url=https://artlark.org/2022/09/05/john-cages-music-of-chance-and-change/ |access-date=December 30, 2023 |website=A R T L▼R K |language=en}}</ref> [[Michael Parsons (composer)|Michael Parsons]], [[Christopher Hobbs]], [[John White (composer)|John White]],<ref>[[Michael Parsons (composer)|Michael Parsons]]. 1976. "Systems in Art and Music". ''[[The Musical Times]]'', vol. 17, no. 1604. (October 1976), 815–818.</ref> [[Gavin Bryars]], who studied under Cage briefly,<ref>{{cite web |title=Gavin Bryars biography etc |publisher=Gavin Bryars' Official Web-site |url=http://www.gavinbryars.com/Pages/bio_fr.html |access-date=September 12, 2009 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090531204314/http://www.gavinbryars.com/Pages/bio_fr.html |archive-date=May 31, 2009 |url-status=dead }}</ref> and [[Howard Skempton]].<ref>{{Cite Grove |last=Potter |first=Keith |title=Skempton, Howard}}</ref> The Japanese composer [[Tōru Takemitsu]] has also cited Cage's influence.<ref>Burt, Peter. 2001. ''The Music of Toru Takemitsu'', 94. Cambridge University Press. {{ISBN|978-0-521-78220-3}}.</ref> In 1986, he received an honorary doctorate from the [[California Institute of the Arts]].<ref>{{Cite news|url=https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1986-04-11-me-3997-story.html|title=CalArts to Honor Composer John Cage With Doctorate|work=Los Angeles Times|date=April 11, 1986|access-date=March 21, 2024}}</ref> Cage is a 1989 Kyoto Prize Laureate; the prize was established by [[Kazuo Inamori]].<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.kyotoprize.org/en/laureates/john_cage/|title=1989 Kyoto Prize Laureate|website= Inamori Foundation|date=November 12, 1989|access-date=March 21, 2024}}</ref> The John Cage Award was endowed and established in 1992 by [[Foundation for Contemporary Arts]] in honor of the late composer, with recipients including [[Meredith Monk]], [[Robert Ashley]], and [[Toshi Ichiyanagi]].<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.foundationforcontemporaryarts.org/grants/john-cage-award/|title= John Cage Award |website=[[Foundation for Contemporary Arts]]|date=November 12, 1992|access-date=March 21, 2024}}</ref>

Following Cage's death [[Simon Jeffes]], founder of the [[Penguin Cafe Orchestra]], composed a piece entitled "CAGE DEAD", using a melody based on the notes contained in the title, in the order they appear: C, A, G, E, D, E, A and D.<ref>{{YouTube|vEJBXObPIkk|Cage Dead, The Penguin Café Orchestra (audio)}} {{Retrieved|access-date=March 15, 2022}} {{Cite web |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Euuiw2RX28I |title=- YouTube |via=YouTube |access-date=November 18, 2019 |archive-date=June 23, 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170623123709/https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Euuiw2RX28I |url-status=dead }}</ref>

Cage's influence was also acknowledged by rock acts such as [[Sonic Youth]] (who performed some of the Number Pieces<ref>{{cite web |title=Sonic Youth's Thurston Moore: On punk music, staying fresh, and the strange bridge between art and rock |publisher=Thirsty Ear Magazine |author=Lopez, Antonio |url=http://www.thirstyearfestival.com/interviews/sonic.html |date=December 1999 – January 2000 |access-date=August 26, 2010 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110717050916/http://www.thirstyearfestival.com/interviews/sonic.html |archive-date=July 17, 2011 }}</ref>) and [[Stereolab]] (who named a song after Cage<ref>{{cite web |title=Hold The Ketchup On That Stereolab |publisher=Yahoo! Music |author=Morris, Chris |url=http://www.music.yahoo.ca/read/interview/12052849 |date=August 17, 1997 |access-date=August 26, 2010 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110706213435/http://www.music.yahoo.ca/read/interview/12052849 |archive-date=July 6, 2011 }}</ref>), composer and rock and jazz guitarist [[Frank Zappa]],<ref>{{Cite book|title=The Words and Music of Frank Zappa |url=https://archive.org/details/wordsmusicfrankz00lowe |url-access=limited |last=Lowe |first=Kelly Fisher |year=2006 |publisher=Praeger Publishers |isbn=978-0-275-98779-4 |page=[https://archive.org/details/wordsmusicfrankz00lowe/page/n75 57]}}</ref> and various [[noise music]] artists and bands: musicologist Paul Hegarty traced the origin of noise music to ''4′33″''.<ref>Paul Hegarty, Full With Noise: Theory and Japanese Noise Music, pp. 86–98 in Life in the Wires (2004) eds. Arthur Kroker & Marilouise Kroker, NWP CTheory Books, Victoria, Canada</ref> The development of electronic music was also influenced by Cage: in the mid-1970s [[Brian Eno]]'s label [[Obscure Records]] released works by Cage.<ref>{{cite magazine|title="I Want to be a Magnet for Tapes" (interview with Brian Eno) |magazine=Time Out |author=Jack, Adrian |url=http://music.hyperreal.org/artists/brian_eno/interviews/timeo75a.html |year=1975 |access-date=August 26, 2010}}</ref> Prepared piano, which Cage popularized, is featured heavily on [[Aphex Twin]]'s 2001 album ''[[Drukqs]]''.<ref>{{cite web|title=Richard Aphex, John Cage and the Prepared Piano |publisher=Warp Records |author=Worby, Robert |url=http://warp.net/records/aphex-twin/richard-aphex-john-cage-and-the-prepared-piano |date=October 23, 2002 |access-date=August 26, 2010}}</ref> Cage's work as musicologist helped popularize Erik Satie's music,<ref>{{Cite book|title=Satie the Composer|last=Orledge|first=Robert|author-link=Robert Orledge|year=1990 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |isbn=978-0-521-35037-2 |page=259}}</ref><ref>[[Shlomowitz, Matthew]]. 1999. ''Cage's Place in the Reception of Satie''. Part of the PhD at the University of California at San Diego, USA. [http://www.satie-archives.com/web/article8.html Available online] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110412014839/http://www.satie-archives.com/web/article8.html |date=April 12, 2011 }}.</ref> and his friendship with [[Abstract expressionist]] artists such as [[Robert Rauschenberg]] helped introduce his ideas into visual art. Cage's ideas also found their way into [[sound design]]: for example, [[Academy Award]]-winning sound designer [[Gary Rydstrom]] cited Cage's work as a major influence.<ref>{{Cite book|title=Sound-on-Film: Interviews With Creators of Film Sound |last=LoBrutto |first=Vincent |year=1994 |publisher=Greenwood Publishing Group |isbn=978-0-275-94443-8 |pages=241–242}}</ref> [[Radiohead]] undertook a composing and performing collaboration with [[Merce Cunningham Dance Company|Cunningham's dance troupe]] in 2003 because the music-group's leader [[Thom Yorke]] considered Cage one of his "all-time art heroes".<ref name="WP01">[[Sarah Kaufman (critic)|Kaufman, Sarah]], [https://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/theater_dance/john-cage-with-merce-cunningham-revolutionized-music-too/2012/08/30/a3edbaf8-f177-11e1-892d-bc92fee603a7_story_1.html "John Cage, with Merce Cunningham, revolutionized dance, too"], ''[[The Washington Post]]'', August 30, 2012. Retrieved September 2, 2012.</ref> In [[The Tragically Hip]]'s 2000 song [[Music At Work|Tiger the Lion]] from their album [[Music @ Work]], lyricist [[Gord Downie]] refers to Cage and his theories.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://macleans.ca/culture/books/gord-downie-wasnt-just-a-rock-star-he-was-a-real-poet-too/|title=Gord Downie wasn't just a rock star—he was a real poet, too - Macleans.ca|date=March 18, 2018 }}</ref>

===Centenary commemoration===

In 2012, among a wide range of American and international centennial celebrations,<ref>[https://web.archive.org/web/20130121131203/http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/arts/culture/la-et-cm-cage-list-20120902,0,4919846,full.story "Events honoring John Cage at 100"], ''Los Angeles Times'', September 2, 2012. Retrieved September 2, 2012.</ref><ref>[http://johncage.org/2012/events.html Events], John Cage Foundation webpage. Retrieved September 2, 2012.</ref> an eight-day festival was held in Washington DC, with venues found notably more among the city's art museums and universities than performance spaces. Earlier in the centennial year, conductor [[Michael Tilson Thomas]] presented Cage's ''[[Song Books (Cage)|Song Books]]'' with the [[San Francisco Symphony]] at Carnegie Hall in New York.<ref>[[Anne Midgette|Midgette, Anne]], [https://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/music/john-cage-centennial-festival-will-it-silence-crtics-in-washington/2012/08/30/f9ce9f3a-f0f7-11e1-adc6-87dfa8eff430_story.html?hpid=z9 "John Cage Centennial Festival: Will it silence critics in Washington?"], ''[[The Washington Post]]'', August 31, 2012. Retrieved September 2, 2012.</ref><ref>[http://www.johncage2012.com Official Festival web site]. Retrieved September 2, 2012.</ref> Another celebration came, for instance, in Darmstadt, Germany, which in July 2012 renamed its central station the John Cage Railway Station during the term of its [[Darmstadt International Summer Courses for New Music|annual new-music courses]].<ref name=LAT01>Swed, Mark, [http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/arts/culture/la-et-cm-john-cage,0,3501401.htmlstory "John Cage's genius an L.A. story"], ''[[Los Angeles Times]]'', August 31, 2012. Retrieved September 2, 2012.</ref> At the [[Ruhrtriennale]] in Germany, [[Heiner Goebbels]] staged a production of ''[[Europeras]] 1 & 2'' in a 36,000 sq ft converted factory and commissioned a production of ''[[Silence: Lectures and Writings|Lecture on Nothing]]'' created and performed by [[Robert Wilson (director)|Robert Wilson]].<ref>{{cite news|last1=Swed|first1=Mark|title=In Germany, John Cage rings out|url=https://www.latimes.com/entertainment/arts/la-xpm-2012-sep-03-la-et-cm-cage-in-germany-notebook-20120903-story.html|access-date=October 8, 2017|newspaper=[[Los Angeles Times]]|date=September 3, 2012}}</ref> Jacaranda Music had four concerts planned in [[Santa Monica, California]], for the centennial week.<ref>[http://jacarandamusic.org/0906.php "Cage 100 Festival"], Jacaranda webpage. Retrieved September 5, 2012.  {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120910091252/http://www.jacarandamusic.org/0906.php |date=September 10, 2012 }}</ref><ref>[[Alex Ross (music critic)|Ross, Alex]], [http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/culture/2012/09/john-cage-at-100.html "The John Cage Century"], ''[[The New Yorker]]'', September 4, 2012. Retrieved September 5, 2012.</ref> [[John Cage Day]] was the name given to several events held during 2012 to mark the centenary of his birth.

A 2012 project was curated by Juraj Kojs to celebrate the centenary of Cage's birth, titled ''On Silence: Homage to Cage.'' It consisted of 13 commissioned works created by composers from around the globe such as [[Kasia Glowicka]], [[Adrian Knight (composer)|Adrian Knight]] and [[Henry Vega]], each being 4 minutes and 33 seconds long in honor of Cage's famous 1952 opus, ''4′33″''. The program was supported by the Foundation for Emerging Technologies and Arts, Laura Kuhn and the John Cage Trust.<ref>{{cite web | url=http://kojs.net/On_Silence/index.html | title=On Silence: Hommage to Cage | publisher=kojs.net | access-date=January 8, 2013 | last=Kojs | first=Juraj|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130816035541/https://kojs.net/On_Silence/index.html|archive-date=August 16, 2013}}</ref>

In a homage to Cage's dance work, the [[Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company]] in July 2012 "performed an engrossing piece called 'Story/Time'. It was modeled on Cage's 1958 work 'Indeterminacy', in which [Cage and then Jones, respectively,] sat alone onstage, reading aloud ... series of one-minute stories [they]'d written. Dancers from Jones's company performed as [Jones] read."<ref name=WP01/>

==Archives==
{{Incomplete list|date=August 2020}}<!-- Need mention of other Cage archives-->
* The archive of the John Cage Trust is held at [[Bard College]] in upstate New York.<ref>{{cite press release|url=http://www.bard.edu/news/releases/pr/fstory.php?id=1181 |title=John Cage Trust Becomes a Permanent Resident Organization of Bard College|publisher=Bard College |date=August 12, 1992 |access-date=December 5, 2013}}</ref>
* The John Cage Music Manuscript Collection held by the Music Division of the [[New York Public Library for the Performing Arts]] contains most of the composer's musical manuscripts, including sketches, worksheets, realizations, and unfinished works.
* The John Cage Papers are held in the Special Collections and Archives department of [[Wesleyan University]]'s Olin Library in Middletown, Connecticut. They contain manuscripts, interviews, fan mail, and ephemera. Other material includes clippings, gallery and exhibition catalogs, a collection of Cage's books and serials, posters, objects, exhibition and literary announcement postcards, and brochures from conferences and other organizations
* The John Cage Collection at [[Northwestern University]] in Illinois contains the composer's correspondence, ephemera, and the ''[[Notations]]'' collection.<ref>[https://www.library.northwestern.edu/libraries-collections/music/collection/john-cage.html The John Cage Collection], [[Northwestern University]]</ref>
* The John Cage Materials are held within the Oral History of American Music (OHAM) collection of the Irving S. Gilmore Library at [[Yale University]].<ref>[https://guides.library.yale.edu/oham/cage The John Cage Materials at Yale], [[Yale University]]</ref>

==See also==
{{Portal|Opera|Classical music|Music|Biography}}
* ''[[An Anthology of Chance Operations]]''
* [[List of compositions by John Cage]]
* The Organ<sup>2</sup>/ASLSP (a.k.a. [[As Slow as Possible]]) project, the longest concert ever created.
* ''[[The Revenge of the Dead Indians]]'', a 1993 documentary about Cage by [[Henning Lohner]].
* [[Works for prepared piano by John Cage]]

==Notes, references, sources==
===Notes===
{{notelist}}

===Citations===
{{Reflist}}

===Sources===
{{refbegin|30em}}
* {{cite book|editor1-last=Bernstein|editor1-first=David W.|editor2-last=Hatch|editor2-first=Christopher|year=2001|title=Writings through John Cage's Music, Poetry, and Art|publisher=University of Chicago Press|isbn=978-0-226-04407-1}}
* {{cite book|last=Bredow|first=Moritz von|year=2012|title=Rebellische Pianistin. Das Leben der [[Grete Sultan]] zwischen Berlin und New York|publisher=[[Schott Music]]|location=Mainz, Germany|isbn=978-3-7957-0800-9}}
* {{cite book|last=Cage|first=John|year=1973|title=[[Silence: Lectures and Writings]]|publisher=Wesleyan University Press|orig-year=1961|isbn=978-0-8195-6028-5}}
* {{cite book|last=Fetterman|first=William|year=1996|title=John Cage's Theatre Pieces: Notations and Performances|publisher=Routledge|isbn=978-3-7186-5643-1}}
* {{cite thesis|last=Haskins|first=Rob|year=2004|title="An Anarchic Society of Sounds": The Number Pieces of John Cage|type=PhD dissertation, Musicology|publisher=[[Eastman School of Music]], University of Rochester}}
* {{cite book|last=Kostelanetz|first=Richard|author-link=Richard Kostelanetz|year=2003|title=Conversing with John Cage|publisher=Routledge|isbn=978-0-415-93792-4}}
* {{cite book|last=Lejeunne|first=Denis|year=2012|title=The Radical Use of Chance in 20th Century Art|publisher=Rodopi Press|location=Amsterdam|isbn=978-94-012-0726-3}}
* {{cite book|editor-last=Nicholls|editor-first=David|editor-link=David Nicholls (musicologist)|year=2002|title=[[Cambridge Companions to Music|The Cambridge Companion to John Cage]]|publisher=Cambridge University Press|isbn=978-0-521-78968-4}}
* {{cite book|last1=Perloff|first1=Marjorie|author1-link=Marjorie Perloff|last2=Junkerman|first2=Charles|year=1994|title=John Cage: Composed in America|publisher=University of Chicago Press|isbn=978-0-226-66057-8}}
* {{cite book|last=Pritchett|first=James|year=1993|title=The Music of John Cage|publisher=Cambridge University Press|isbn=978-0-521-56544-8}}
* {{cite grove |last1=Pritchett |first1=James |first2=Laura |last2=Kuhn |first3=Charles Hiroshi |last3=Garrett |title=Cage, John |doi=10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.article.A2223954 |year=2012}}
* {{cite book|last=Revill|first=David|year=1993|title=The Roaring Silence: John Cage – a Life|publisher=Arcade Publishing|isbn=978-1-55970-220-1}}
{{refend}}

==Further reading==
{{Library resources box|by=yes|onlinebooks=no|wikititle=John Cage}}
{{div col|colwidth=45em}}
* {{ill|Leonardo Vittorio Arena|it|lt=Arena, Leonardo Vittorio}}. 2013. ''L'infinita durata del non-suono''. Mimesis Publishing, Milan {{ISBN|978-88-575-1138-2}}
* Arena, Leonardo Vittorio. 2014. ''Il Tao del non-suono'', ebook.
* [[Boulez, Pierre]], and Cage, John. 1995. ''The Boulez-Cage Correspondence''. Edited by Robert Samuels and [[Jean-Jacques Nattiez]], translated by Robert Samuels. Cambridge University Press. {{ISBN|978-0-521-48558-6}}
* [[Kathan Brown|Brown, Kathan]]. 2001. ''John Cage Visual Art: To Sober and Quiet the Mind''. Crown Point Press. {{ISBN|978-1-891300-16-5}}, {{ISBN|978-1-891300-16-5}}
* {{cite journal |last1=Davidović |first1=Dalibor |title=Branches |journal=Musicological Annual |date=June 17, 2015 |volume=51 |issue=2 |pages=9–25 |doi=10.4312/mz.51.2.9-25 |doi-access=free }}
* [[William Duckworth (composer)| Duckworth, William]] 1995. ''Talking Music''. New York: Schirmer Books {{ISBN|0-02-870823-7}}
* [[Richard Dufallo| Dufallo, Richard]] 1989. ''Trackings: Composers Speak with Richard Dufallo''. New York: Oxford University Press. {{ISBN|0-19-505816-X}}
* Eldred, Michael. 1995/2006. [http://www.arte-fact.org/heicagen.html ''Heidegger's Hölderlin and John Cage''], www.arte-fact.org
* Eldred, Michael. 2010. [http://www.arte-fact.org/qvrpropn.html ''The Quivering of Propriation: A Parallel Way to Music''], [http://www.arte-fact.org/qvrpropn.html#II.3 Section II.3 New Music is the Other Music (Cage)] www.arte-fact.org
* Gagne, Cole and Tracy Caras. 1982. ''Soundpieces: Interviews with American Composers''. Metuchen, NJ: Scarecrow Press. {{ISBN|0-8108-1474-9}}
* Haskins, Rob. 2012. ''John Cage''. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. {{ISBN|978-1-86189-905-7}}
* {{cite book|last1=Cage|first1=John|editor=Jeremy Miller|title=Every Day is a Good Day – The Visual Art of John Cage|year=2010|publisher=Hayward Publishing|isbn=978-1-85332-283-9|ref=none}}
* Kass, Ray, and Howard Risatti, eds. ''The Mountain Lake Symposium and Workshop: Art in Locale''. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press (Longwood University), 2018. ISBN 978-0997838107. [https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1033547787 OCLC 1033547787]. Accessed July 26, 2025.
* Kuhn, Laura (ed). 2016. ''Selected Letters of John Cage''. Wesleyan University Press. {{ISBN|978-0-8195-7591-3}}.
* Larson, Kay. 2012. ''Where the Heart Beats – John Cage, Zen Buddhism, and the Inner Life of Artists''. Penguin Books USA. {{ISBN|978-1-59420-340-4}}
* [[David Nicholls (musicologist)|Nicholls, David]]. 2007. ''John Cage''. University of Illinois Press. {{ISBN|978-0-252-03215-8}}
* Patterson, David W. (ed.). ''John Cage: Music, Philosophy, and Intention, 1933–1950''. Routledge, 2002. {{ISBN|978-0-8153-2995-4}}
* {{cite magazine |last1=Smith |first1=Geoff |author2=Nicola Walker |date=April 1993 |title=20th Century Americans: John Cage |url=http://www.muzines.co.uk/articles/20th-century-americans-john-cage/5493 |magazine=Music Technology |page=62|issn=0957-6606|oclc=24835173|ref=none}}
* {{cite journal |last=Swed |first=Mark |author-link=Mark Swed |date=Spring 1993 |title=John Cage: September 5, 1912 – August 12, 1992 |journal=[[The Musical Quarterly]] |volume=77 |issue=1 |pages=132–144 |doi=10.1093/mq/77.1.132 |jstor=742432|ref=none}}
* [[Taruskin, Richard]]. 2005. ''[[Oxford History of Western Music]]''. Vol. 5. Oxford: Oxford University Press. "Indeterminacy" pp.&nbsp;55–101. {{ISBN|978-0-19-516979-9}}
* {{cite magazine |last=Ward |first=Phil|date=October 1992 |title=The Rest Is Silence: An Appreciation &#124; John Cage |url=http://www.muzines.co.uk/articles/the-rest-is-silence/1177 |magazine=Music Technology |page=42 |issn=0957-6606|oclc=24835173|ref=none}}
* Woodward, Roger (2014). "John Cage". ''Beyond Black and White''. HarperCollins. pp.&nbsp;313–321. {{ISBN|978-0-7333-2303-4}}
* Zimmerman, Walter. ''Desert Plants – Conversations with 23 American Musicians'', Berlin: Beginner Press in cooperation with Mode Records, 2020 {{ISBN|978-3-9813319-6-7}} (originally published in 1976 by A.R.C., Vancouver {{ISBN|978-0-88985-009-5}}).
{{div col end}}

==External links==
{{External links|section|date=March 2020}}
{{commons category}}
{{Wikiquote}}
'''General information and catalogues'''
* {{Official website|johncage.org}}
* [http://www.xs4all.nl/~cagecomp/ A John Cage Compendium], website by Cage scholar Paul van Emmerik, in collaboration with performer Herbert Henck and András Wilheim. Includes exhaustive catalogues and bibliography, chronology of Cage's life, etc.
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20190409160226/http://solomonsmusic.net/Cage.htm Larry Solomon's John Cage Pages], a complete catalogue of Cage's music and a filmography, as well as other materials.
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20120821201406/http://www.edition-peters.com/composer/Cage-John Edition Peters: John Cage Biography and Works], Cage's principal publisher since 1961.
* [http://www.oac.cdlib.org/findaid/ark:/13030/kt4w10133d Guide to the John Cage Mycology Collection]
* [https://archives.yale.edu/repositories/7/archival_objects/3183611 John Cage oral histories at Oral History of American Music]
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20050419074317/http://www.lichtensteiger.de/stories.html Silence/Stories:] related texts and poems by, among others, Lowell Cross, AP Crumlish, [[Karlheinz Essl]], [[Raymond Federman]], August Highland, George Koehler, [[Richard Kostelanetz]], Ian S. Macdonald, [[Beat Streuli]], Dan Waber, Sigi Waters and [[John Whiting]]
* {{BrahmsOnline|679}}
* {{IMDb name|128509}}
* [http://www.eai.org/artistTitles.htm?id=421 Artist Biography] and a list of video works by and about John Cage at [[Electronic Arts Intermix]] [https://web.archive.org/web/20120413185404/http://www.eai.org/index.htm eai.org].
* [http://www.bruceduffie.com/cage.html Interview with John Cage], June 21, 1987
* [https://www.aaa.si.edu/collections/interviews/oral-history-interview-john-cage-12442 An interview with John Cage conducted 1974 May 2, by Paul Cummings, for the Archives of American Art.]
* {{discogs artist|John Cage}}

'''Link collections'''
* [http://ronsen.org/cagelinks.html John Cage Online]
* [http://digitalcollections.ucsc.edu/cdm/search/collection/p265101coll25/searchterm/John%20Cage/order/date Photographs of John Cage from the UC Santa Cruz Library's Digital Collections] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190430154253/http://digitalcollections.ucsc.edu/cdm/search/collection/p265101coll25/searchterm/John%2520Cage/order/date |date=April 30, 2019 }}

'''Specific topics'''
* [http://www.sterneck.net/john-cage "Silence and Change / Five Hanau Silence"]: Articles and documents on a project of John Cage, Claus Sterneck and Wolfgang Sterneck in benefit of a squatted culture center in Hanau (Germany) in 1991, (English / German).
* Garten, Joel, [http://www.huffingtonpost.com/joel-garten/interview-with-moma-curator_b_4806215.html?ir=Arts "Interview With MoMA Curator David Platzker About the New Exhibition on John Cage"], ''The Huffington Post'', February 20, 2014.

'''Listening'''
* [http://radiom.org/detail.php?omid=C.1967.10.25.1 In Conversation with Morton Feldman, 1966, Part 1], [http://radiom.org/detail.php?omid=C.1967.10.25.2 Part 2], [http://radiom.org/detail.php?omid=C.1967.10.25.3 Part 3], [http://radiom.org/detail.php?omid=C.1967.10.25.4 Part 4], [http://radiom.org/detail.php?omid=C.1967.10.25.5 and Part 5]
* [https://soundcloud.com/cbcbravenewwaves/john-cage-interview 1989 radio interview] on the [[Canadian Broadcasting Corporation|CBC]] program [[Brave New Waves]].

'''Media'''
* John Cage at [[UbuWeb]]: [http://www.ubu.com/historical/cage/index.html historical], [http://www.ubu.com/sound/cage.html sound], [http://www.ubu.com/film/cage.html film].
* [http://www.lcdf.org/indeterminacy/about.html Indeterminacy], Cage's short stories taken from various publications and accessed in random order.
* [http://www.essl.at/works/fontana-mixer.html FontanaMixer]: computer program by Karlheinz Essl that generates a realtime version of John Cage's "Fontana Mix" (1958)
* [http://radiom.org/detail.php?omid=C.1963.XX.XX Other Minds Archive: John Cage interviewed by Jonathan Cott], streaming audio
* [http://radiom.org/detail.php?omid=C.1965.01.16.A Other Minds Archive: John Cage and David Tudor Concert at The San Francisco Museum of Art (January 16, 1965)], streaming audio
* [http://radiom.org/detail.php?omid=OMF.1999.March 27, 2002 Suite for Toy Piano (1948)] performed by Margaret Leng Tan at the Other Minds Music Festival in 1999 at the Cowell Theater in San Francisco.
* [http://rwm.macba.cat/en/specials?id_capsula=599 Notes towards a re-reading of the "Roaratorio"] – the work of John Cage and his special relationship to radio at Ràdio Web MACBA
* [http://www.thankyouoneandall.co.uk/letters/cage.htm The Rest isn't Silence... it doesn't exist!] – Analytical material and recordings going back to the first rehearsal and performance of ''Imaginary Landscape No. 4'' in 1951.
* [http://rwm.macba.cat/en/specials/fluxradio_joe_gilmore_rhiannon_silver/capsula Fluxradio (podcast)] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190409160237/https://rwm.macba.cat/en/specials/fluxradio_joe_gilmore_rhiannon_silver/capsula |date=April 9, 2019 }} – An exploration of some of the concepts and ideas behind the music and performance practice of Fluxus.
* [http://accentus.com/discs/john-cage-journeys-in-sound ''John Cage – Journeys in Sound''], documentary, Germany, 2012, 60 min., director: Allan Miller & Paul Smaczny, written by [[Anne-Kathrin Peitz]]; production: Accentus Music in co-production with [[Westdeutscher Rundfunk]]. "Czech Crystal Award" (Best Documentary) at Golden Prague Festival 2012.
'''Exhibitions'''

* [https://www.phillipscollection.org/event/2012-06-01-john-cage-phillips John Cage at the Phillips] 2012 exhibition at [[The Phillips Collection]]
* [https://www.nga.gov/exhibitions/john-cage-rocks-paper-fire John Cage: Rocks, Paper, Fire] a [[National Gallery of Art]] exhibition of six of Cage’s prints (August 24 – September 16, 2012)
* [https://www.museum-brandhorst.de/en/press/five-friends/ Five Friends: John Cage, Merce Cunningham, Jasper Johns, Robert Rauschenberg, Cy Twombly] an exhibition focused on their friendship and collaboration in different artistic genres.  The exhibit was a collaboration between [[Museum Brandhorst]] (on view April 10-August 17, 2025) and [[Museum Ludwig]] (on view October 3, 2025-January 11, 2026).  The catalog was published in both English and German {{ISBN|978-3-8296-1043-8}}

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