John Cage: biography

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John Cage (Los Angeles, California, USA, 1912 - New York City, New York, USA, 1992)

• composer

Having a talent for every form of art and being interested by each one of them, John Cage (1912-1992), American, took a long time before choosing to dedicate himself to music. Leader of the American avant-garde, active member of artistic movement Fluxus, Cage deeply disrupted musical composing, focusing his work upon usage of random and indeterminatinon. Chance led him indeed to the discovery of his greatest invention: prepared piano. In 1940, when asked to quickly create a music for a choregraphy, Cage realized with anxiety that the stage where he was to set a percussions ensemble was to small. He had then the idea to change the sound of a piano by placing between the chords an array of tiny objects, such as screws, bolts, chunks of rubber, etc. — the tones thus created did evoke percussions. Exploitating this new material was to be the leitmotiv of his research for the next 15 years.

Étienne Guérin [English translation: Patrick Poulin, iv-04]

John Cage: biography

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