John cage biography summary template free

Working during the heyday of Abstract Expressionism , John Cage honed his skills in the midst of the growing American avant-garde.

John cage education background

Neither a painter or a sculptor, Cage is best known for revolutionizing modern music through his incorporation of unconventional instrumentation and the idea of environmental music dictated by chance. His approach to composition was deeply influenced by Asian philosophies, focusing on the harmony that exists in nature, as well as elements of chance.

Cage is famous not only for his radical works, like 4'33" , in which the ambient noise of the recital hall created the music, but also for his innovative collaborations with artists like Merce Cunningham and Robert Rauschenberg. These partnerships helped break down the divisions between the various realms of art production, such as music, performance, painting, and dance, allowing for new interdisciplinary work to be produced.

Cage's influence ushered in groundbreaking stylistic developments key to contemporary art and paved the way for the postmodern artistic inquiries, which began in the late s and further challenged the established definition of fine art. Heavily influenced by Cage's studies of Indian music and philosophy in the early s, this cycle of 16 sonatas and four interludes was composed to express the eight "permanent emotions" of the rasa Indian tradition.

These emotions are divided into two groups: the white humor, wonder, erotic, and heroic and the black anger, fear, disgust and sorrow. Sonatas and Interludes was dedicated to Armenian-American pianist Maro Ajemian, who performed in the recording of the piece and during its debut at Carnegie Hall in Her performance of the work resulted in Cage's receipt of a generous grant from the Guggenheim Foundation.

Considered by many to be the composer's first masterpiece and highly characteristic of his oeuvre , the work was crafted to include improvisation while following a highly melodic structure based on a simple mathematical formula. Theater Piece No. Referred to by many as simply "The Event," the piece involved several simultaneous performance components - all orchestrated by Cage, where chance played a determining role in the course of the performance.

Some of the components included in "The Event" were: poetry readings, music, dance, photographic slide projections, film, and the four panels of Robert Rauschenberg's White Paintings suspended from the ceiling in the shape of a cross. Cage sat on a step ladder and lectured about Buddhism, or said nothing, and M.