The New Music: John Cage Centenary Concert

This celebration of the 100th birthday of composer, music theorist, writer and artist John Cage features performances by Robert Ashley, David Behrman, Alvin Lucier and Chris Mann. John Cage first came to The New School in 1933 at Henry Cowell’s invitation to study composition with Cowell and Adolph Weiss. From 1956 to 1961, Cage taught classes in experimental composition at The New School. He also taught on mycology (he was a founder of the New York Mycological Society) and delivered a series of lectures on everything from music to mushrooms, from Buckminster Fuller to Marshall McLuhan. During that period Cage wrote several now well-known works including Variations 1 and Concerto for Piano and Orchestra and worked to develop his own system of musical graphic notation and was a founder of the New York Mycological Society. Arnold Schönberg noted of Cage, “He is not a composer [of music] but an inventor - of genius.” Cage, of course, had already responded. "Everything we do is music."
Presented by the School of Media Studies