Innovative Composer and pianist, educated at Pomona College, he studied music with Fannie Dillon, Ruhan Buhlig, Lazare Levy, Henry Cowell, Adolph Weiss, 'Arnold Schönberg' (qv), and 'Edgard Varèse' (qv). He invented the concept of the "prepared" piano, and gave recitals in Europe and the United States. He joined ASCAP in 1955.
Cage is perhaps best known for his 1952 composition ''4′33″'', the three movements of which are performed without a single note being played. The content of the composition is meant to be perceived as the sounds of the environment that the listeners hear while it is performed, rather than merely as four minutes and thirty three seconds of silence, and the piece became one of the most controversial compositions of the twentieth century. Another famous creation of Cage's is the prepared piano (a piano with its sound altered by placing various objects in the strings), for which he wrote numerous dance-related works and a few concert pieces, the best known of which is ''Sonatas and Interludes'' (1946–48).
His 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 cultures. Through his studies of Indian philosophy and Zen Buddhism in the late 1940s, Cage came to the idea of aleatoric or chance-controlled music, which he started composing in 1951. The ''I Ching'', an ancient Chinese classic text on changing events, became Cage's standard composition tool for the rest of his life. 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".
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 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. By 1928 Cage was convinced that he wanted to be a writer. That year he graduated from Los Angeles High School as a valedictorian and enrolled at Pomona College, Claremont. However, in 1930 he dropped out, believing that "college was of no use to a writer" by an incident described in the 1991 autobiographical statement:
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.Cage persuaded his parents that a trip to Europe would be more beneficial to a future writer than college studies. He subsequently hitchhiked to Galveston and sailed to Le Havre, where he took a train to Paris. Cage stayed in Europe for some 18 months, trying his hand at various forms of art. First he studied Gothic and Greek architecture, but decided he was not interested enough in architecture to dedicate his life to it. Cage started travelling, visited various places in France, Germany and Spain, as well as Capri and, most importantly, Majorca, where he started composing. His first compositions were created using dense mathematical formulae, but Cage was displeased with the results and left the finished pieces behind when he left. Cage's association with theatre 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."
Following Cowell's advice, Cage travelled to New York City in 1933 and started studying with Weiss as well as taking lessons from Cowell himself at The New School. 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 am. Several months later, still in 1933, Cage became sufficiently good at composition to approach Schoenberg. He could not afford Schoenberg's price, however, 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.
Cage studied with Schoenberg in California: first at USC and then at UCLA, as well as privately. particularly as an example of how to live one's life being a composer. 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'':
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."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."
In 1938, with help from a fellow Cowell student Lou Harrison, Cage became a faculty member 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.
Like his personal life, Cage's artistic life went through a crisis in 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. Cage also attended, in late 1940s and early 1950s, D. T. Suzuki's lectures on Zen Buddhism, and read the works of Ananda K. Coomaraswamy.
In early 1951, Wolff presented Cage with a copy of the ''I Ching''—a Chinese classic text which describes a symbol system used to identify order in chance events. The ''I Ching'' is commonly used for divination, but for Cage it became a tool to compose using chance. 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": his lifelong interest in sound itself culminated in an approach that yielded works in which sounds were free from the composer's will:
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.
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), the ''I Ching'' opened new possibilities in this field for him. The first results of the new approach were ''Imaginary Landscape No. 4'' for 12 radio receivers, and ''Music of Changes'' for piano. The latter work was written for David Tudor, whom Cage met through Feldman—another friendship that lasted until Cage's death. Tudor premiered most of Cage's works until early 1960s, when he stopped performing and concentrated on composition. The ''I Ching'' became Cage's standard tool for composition: he used it in practically every work composed after 1951.
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 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. Nevertheless, Cage managed to survive and maintained an active artistic life, giving lectures, performances, etc. In 1952–53 he completed another mammoth project—the ''Williams Mix'', a piece of tape music, which Earle Brown helped to put together. Also in 1952, Cage wrote down the piece that became his most well-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 conceived "a silent piece" years earlier, but was reluctant to write it down; and indeed, the premiere (given by Tudor on August 29, 1952 at Woodstock, New York) caused an uproar in the audience. The reaction to ''4′33″'' was just a part of the larger picture, however: 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 use of chance, and so were other composers who came to prominence during the 1950s, i.e. Karlheinz Stockhausen and Iannis Xenakis.
From 1953 onwards, 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 Summer 1954 he moved out from New York and settled in a cooperative community in Stony Point, New York. 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 during 1956–58 he also worked as an art director of a typography. 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, and ''Variations I'' (1958).
In 1967, Cage's ''A Year from Monday'' was first published by Wesleyan University Press. Cage's parents died during the decade: his father in 1964, 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.
However, 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." Cage's fondness for the piece resulted in a recording—a rare occurrence, since Cage disliked making recordings of his music—made in 1976. 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).
''Cheap Imitation'' became the last work Cage performed in public himself. Arthritis had troubled Cage since 1960, and by early 1970s his hands were painfully swollen and rendered him unable to perform. Nevertheless, he still played ''Cheap Imitation'' during the 1970s, 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, which happened in early 1970s. Tudor decided to concentrate on composition instead, and so Cage, for the first time in two decades, had to start relying on commissions from 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 (mesostics). ''M (John Cage book)'' 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 watercolors, constitute the largest portion of his extant visual art. In 1979 Cage's ''Empty Words'' was first published by Wesleyan University Press.
Already in the course of the eighties, Cage's health worsened progressively: he suffered not only from arthritis, but also from sciatica and arteriosclerosis. He suffered 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. 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 suffered another stroke. He was taken to the nearest hospital, where he died on the morning of August 12. According to his wishes, Cage's body was cremated, and the ashes scattered in the Ramapo Mountains, near Stony Point, New York, the same place where Cage scattered the ashes of his parents, years before. The composer's death occurred only weeks before a celebration of his 80th birthday organized in Frankfurt by the composer Walter Zimmermann and the musicologist Stefan Schaedler was due to take place. However, the event went ahead as planned, including a performance of the ''Concert for Piano and Orchestra'' by David Tudor and Ensemble Modern. Merce Cunningham outlived his partner by 17 years, and died peacefully in his home, of natural causes, on July 26, 2009.
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. ''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. 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), or ''A Flower'', a song for voice and closed piano, in which two sets of proportions are used simultaneously.
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.
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 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. 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″).
Cage's method of using the ''I Ching'' was far from simple randomization, however. 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 scales beginning on white notes and remaining on white notes, which of those am I using? # Which of the twelve possible chromatic transpositions 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? 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.
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 coordinate system, in which the lines are axes of various characteristics of the sounds, such as lowest frequency, simplest overtone structure, etc. 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. ''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. This concept of circus was to remain important to Cage throughout his life and featured strongly in such pieces as ''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.
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''.
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. 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. In 1988–1990 he produced watercolors at the Mountain Lake Workshop. The only film Cage produced was one of the Number Pieces, ''One11'', 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. ''One11'' 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'' (1959), 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: he co-founded the New York Mycological Society with four friends, and his mycology collection is presently housed by the Special Collections department of the McHenry Library at the University of California, Santa Cruz.
An article by teacher and critic Michael Steinberg, ''Tradition and Responsibility'', criticized avant-garde music in general:
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.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."
While much of Cage's work remains controversial, his influence on countless composers, artists, and writers is undeniable. After Cage introduced chance, 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 was influenced by Cage's ''Music of Changes'' and David Tudor. Other composers who adopted chance procedures in their works included Witold Lutosławski, Mauricio Kagel, 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 techniques.
Cage's rhythmic structure experiments and his interest in sound influenced an even greater number of composers, starting at first with his close American associates Morton Feldman and Christian Wolff (and other American composers, such as La Monte Young), and then spreading to Europe. For example, almost all composers of the English experimental school acknowledge his influence: Michael Parsons, Christopher Hobbs, John White, Gavin Bryars, who studied under Cage briefly, and even Howard Skempton, a composer seemingly very different from Cage, and one whose work has been described as "the emancipation of consonance." Cage's influence is also evident in the Far East: one of Japan's most prominent classical composers of the 20th century, Tōru Takemitsu, was influenced by his music.
Cage's influence was also acknowledged by rock bands, such as Sonic Youth (who performed some of the Number Pieces) and Stereolab (who named a song after Cage), composer and rock and jazz guitarist Frank Zappa, and various noise music artists and bands: indeed, one writer traced the origin of noise music to ''4′33″''. The development of electronic music was also influenced by Cage: in the mid-1970s Brian Eno's label Obscure Records released works by Cage. Prepared piano, which Cage popularized, is featured heavily on Aphex Twin's 2001 album ''Drukqs''. Cage's work as musicologist helped popularize Erik Satie's music, 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.
==Archives==
Category:1912 births Category:1992 deaths Category:20th-century classical composers Category:American anarchists Category:American composers Category:American writers Category:Anarchist poets Category:Harvard University people Category:Anarchist musicians Category:Experimental composers Category:Fluxus Category:Guggenheim Fellows Category:LGBT musicians from the United States Category:LGBT composers Category:Opera composers Category:People from Los Angeles, California Category:Western mystics Category:Black Mountain College faculty Category:Wesleyan University faculty Category:Contemporary classical music performers Category:American Zen Buddhists Category:American experimental musicians Category:Avant-garde pianists Category:Cornish College of the Arts faculty
ca:John Cage cs:John Cage cy:John Cage da:John Cage de:John Cage et:John Cage el:Τζων Κέιτζ es:John Cage eo:John Cage fa:جان کیج fr:John Cage fy:John Cage gl:John Cage ko:존 케이지 io:John Cage it:John Cage he:ג'ון קייג' ka:ჯონ ქეიჯი lv:Džons Keidžs li:John Cage hu:John Cage nl:John Cage ja:ジョン・ケージ no:John Cage nn:John Cage oc:John Cage pl:John Cage pt:John Cage ro:John Cage ru:Кейдж, Джон scn:John Cage simple:John Cage sk:John Cage sh:John Cage fi:John Cage sv:John Cage tl:John Cage th:จอห์น เคจ tr:John Cage uk:Джон Кейдж vi:John Cage zh:約翰·凱吉This text is licensed under the Creative Commons CC-BY-SA License. This text was originally published on Wikipedia and was developed by the Wikipedia community.
Coordinates | 55°45′06″N37°37′04″N |
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name | David Tudor |
background | non_vocal_instrumentalist |
origin | Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA |
birth date | January 20, 1926 |
death date | August 13, 1996 |
instrument | Piano |
occupation | Professional Musician, Composer |
associated acts | John Cage }} |
David Eugene Tudor (January 20, 1926 – August 13, 1996) was an American pianist and composer of experimental music.
The composer with whom Tudor is particularly associated is John Cage. He gave the premiere of Cage's ''Music of Changes'', ''Concerto For Piano and Orchestra'' and the notorious ''4' 33"''. Cage said that many of his pieces were written either specifically for Tudor to perform or with him in mind, once stating "what you had to do was to make a situation that would interest ''him''. That was the role he played.” The two worked closely together on many of Cage's pieces, both works for piano and electronic pieces, including for the Smithsonian Folkways album: ''Indeterminacy: New Aspect of Form in Instrumental and Electronic Music (1992)''.
After a stint teaching at Darmstadt from 1956 to 1961, Tudor began to wind up his activities as a pianist to concentrate on composing. He wrote mostly electronic works, many commissioned by Cage's partner, choreographer Merce Cunningham. His homemade musical circuits are considered landmarks in live electronic music and electrical instrument building as a form of composition. One piece, ''Reunion'' (1968), written jointly with Lowell Cross features a chess game, where each move triggers a lighting effect or projection. At the premiere, the game was played between John Cage and Marcel Duchamp.
Upon Cage's death in 1992, Tudor took over as music director of the Merce Cunningham Dance Company. Among many works created for the company, Tudor composed ''Soundings: Ocean Diary'' (1994), the electronic component of ''Ocean'', which was conceived by John Cage and Merce Cunningham, with choreography by Merce Cunningham, orchestral music by Andrew Culver, and design by Marsha Skinner.
Tudor died in Tomkins Cove, New York at the age of 70.
Category:20th-century classical composers Category:Experimental composers Category:American classical pianists Category:1926 births Category:1996 deaths Category:Contemporary classical music performers Category:Avant-garde pianists Category:Black Mountain College faculty
ca:David Tudor da:David Tudor de:David Tudor es:David Tudor fr:David Tudor it:David Tudor ja:デイヴィッド・チューダーThis text is licensed under the Creative Commons CC-BY-SA License. This text was originally published on Wikipedia and was developed by the Wikipedia community.
Coordinates | 55°45′06″N37°37′04″N |
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name | Merce Cunningham |
birth name | Mercier Philip Cunningham |
birth date | April 16, 1919 |
birth place | Centralia, Washington |
death date | July 26, 2009 |
death place | New York City |
occupation | Dancer, choreographer |
years active | 1938–2009 |
partner | John Cage |
website | merce.org }} |
As a choreographer, teacher and leader of the Merce Cunningham Dance Company, Cunningham had a profound influence on modern dance. Many dancers who trained with Cunningham formed their own companies, and they include Paul Taylor, Remy Charlip, Viola Farber, Charles Moulton, Karole Armitage, Robert Kovich, Foofwa d’Immobilité, Kimberly Bartosik, Floanne Ankah and Jonah Bokaer.
In 2009, the Cunningham Dance Foundation announced the Legacy Plan, a precedent-setting plan for the continuation of Cunningham’s work and the celebration and preservation of his artistic legacy.
Cunningham earned some of the highest honors bestowed in the arts, including the National Medal of Arts and the MacArthur Fellowship. He also received Japan's Praemium Imperiale, a British Laurence Olivier Award, and was named Officier of the Légion d'honneur in France.
Cunningham’s life and artistic vision have been the subject of numerous books, films, and exhibitions, and his works have been presented by groups including the Paris Opéra Ballet, New York City Ballet, American Ballet Theatre, White Oak Dance Project, and London's Rambert Dance Company.
In the fall of 1939, Cunningham moved to New York and began a six-year stint as a soloist in the company of Martha Graham. He presented his first solo concert in New York in April 1944 with composer John Cage, who became his life partner and frequent collaborator until Cage's death in 1992.
In the summer of 1953, as a teacher in residence at Black Mountain College, Cunningham formed the Merce Cunningham Dance Company as a forum to explore his new ideas on dance and the performing arts.
Over the course of his career, Cunningham choreographed more than 200 dances and over 800 “''Events'',” which are site-specific choreographic works. In 1963 he joined with Cage to create the Walker Art Center's first performance, instigating what would be a 25-year collaborative relationship with the Walker. In his performances, he often used the I Ching in order to determine the sequence of his dances and, often, dancers were not told until the night of the performance. In addition to his role as choreographer, Cunningham performed as a dancer in his company into the early 1990s.
He continued to lead his dance company until his death, and presented a new work, ''Nearly Ninety'', in April 2009, at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, New York, to mark his 90th birthday.
Cunningham lived in New York City, and was Artistic Director of the Merce Cunningham Dance Company. He died peacefully in his home.
The original Company included dancers Carolyn Brown, Viola Farber, Paul Taylor, and Remy Charlip, and musicians John Cage and David Tudor.
In its early years, MCDC toured in a Volkswagen bus driven by John Cage with just enough room for six dancers, the two musicians, and a stage manager, who was often Robert Rauschenberg. MCDC’s first international tour in 1964—which included performances in Western and Eastern Europe, India, Thailand, and Japan—solidified a constant stream of national and international bookings. In the years since, MCDC has continued to tour the world to critical and popular acclaim, serving as an ambassador for contemporary American culture.
Recent performances and projects include a two-year residency at Dia:Beacon, where MCDC performed Events, Cunningham’s site-specific choreographic collages, in the galleries of Richard Serra, Dan Flavin, and Sol LeWitt among others. In 2007, MCDC premiered XOVER, Cunningham’s final collaboration with Rauschenberg, at Dartmouth College in New Hampshire. In 2009, MCDC premiered Cunningham’s newest work, ''Nearly Ninety'', at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. The Company continues to perform and tour internationally.
From the company's beginnings, Cunningham collaborated with John Cage, its Musical Advisor and Cunningham's life partner from the 1940s until Cage’s death in 1992. Cage had the greatest influence on his practice. Together, Cunningham and Cage proposed a number of radical innovations. The most famous and controversial of these concerned the relationship between dance and music, which they concluded may occur in the same time and space, but should be created independently of one another. They also made extensive use of chance procedures, abandoning not only musical forms, but narrative and other conventional elements of dance composition—such as cause and effect, and climax and anticlimax. For Cunningham the subject of his dances is always dance itself.
After his death, John Cage was succeeded by David Tudor. Since 1995, MCDC has been under the music direction of Takehisa Kosugi. MCDC has commissioned more work from contemporary composers than any other dance company. Its repertory includes works by musicians ranging from John Cage and Gordon Mumma to Gavin Bryars and Sonic Youth.
The Company has also collaborated with an array of visual artists and designers. Robert Rauschenberg, whose famous “Combines” reflect the approach he used to create décor for a number of MCDC’s early works, served as the Company’s resident designer from 1954 through 1964. Jasper Johns followed as Artistic Advisor from 1967 until 1980, and Mark Lancaster from 1980 through 1984. The last Advisors to be appointed were William Anastasi and Dove Bradshaw in 1984. Other artists who have collaborated with MCDC include Daniel Arsham, Tacita Dean, Liz Phillips, Rei Kawakubo, Roy Lichtenstein, Bruce Nauman, Ernesto Neto, Frank Stella, Benedetta Tagliabue, and Andy Warhol.
'' ''John Cage and I became interested in the use of chance in the 50's. I think one of the very primary things that happened then was the publication of the "I Ching," the Chinese book of changes, from which you can cast your fortune: the hexagrams''. ''Cage took it to work in his way of making compositions then; and he used the idea of 64—the number of the hexagrams —to say that you had 64, for example, sounds; then you could cast, by chance, to find which sound first appeared, cast again, to say which sound came second, cast again, so that it's done by, in that sense, chance operations. Instead of finding out what you think should follow—say a particular sound—what did the I Ching suggest?'' ''Well, I took this also for dance''. ''I was working on a title called, “Untitled Solo,” and I had made—using the chance operations—a series of movements written on scraps of paper for the legs and the arms, the head, all different. And it was done not to the music but with the music of Christian Wolff''.—Merce Cunningham, ''Merce Cunningham: A Lifetime of Dance'', 2000
Although the use of chance operations was considered an abrogation of artistic responsibility, Cunningham was thrilled by a process that arrives at works that could never have been created through traditional collaboration. This does not mean, however, that Cunningham holds every piece created in this fashion is a masterpiece. Those dances that do not "work" are quickly dropped from repertory, while those that do are celebrated as serendipitous discoveries.
Another of Cunningham's innovations was the development of what might be called "non-representative" dance which simply emphasizes movement: in Cunningham's choreography, dancers do not necessarily represent any historical figure, emotional situation, or idea.
In 2009, Cunningham’s interest in new media led to the creation of Mondays with Merce. This webcast series provides a never-before-seen look at the Company and Cunningham’s teaching technique with video of advanced technique class, Company rehearsal, archival footage, and interviews with current and former Company members, choreographers, and collaborators.
The Legacy Plan includes a comprehensive documentation and preservation program, which will ensure that pieces from his repertory can be studied, performed and enjoyed by future generations with knowledge of how they originally came to life. In addition, once Cunningham is no longer able to lead his Company, the plan outlines a final international tour for the Company, and, ultimately, the closure of the Cunningham Dance Foundation and Merce Cunningham Dance Company and transfer of all assets to the Merce Cunningham Trust, established by Cunningham to serve as the custodian for his works.
The major exhibition ''Invention: Merce Cunningham & Collaborators'' at the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts closed on October 13, 2007.
''Merce Cunningham: Dancing on the Cutting Edge'', an exhibition of recent design for MCDC, opened at the Museum of Contemporary Art, North Miami, in January 2007.
A trio of exhibitions devoted to John Cage, Robert Rauschenberg, and Merce Cunningham, curated by Ron Bishop, were shown in the spring of 2002 at the Gallery of Fine Art, Edison College, Fort Myers, Florida.
A major exhibition about Cunningham and his collaborations, curated by Germano Celant, was first seen at the Fundació Antoni Tàpies in Barcelona in 1999, and subsequently at the Fundação de Serralves, Porto, Portugal, 1999; the Museum moderner Kunst Stiftung Ludwig, Vienna, 2000; and the Museo d’Arte Contemporanea, Castello di Rivoli, Turin, 2000.
Suite for Five (1956–1958) Music: John Cage, Music for Piano Costumes: Robert Rauschenberg Lighting: Beverly Emmons
Crises (1960) Music: Conlon Nancarrow (from Rhythm Studies for Player Piano) Costumes, Lighting: Robert Rauschenberg
Rainforest (1968) Lighting: Richard Nelson
Second Hand (1970) Music: John Cage, (Cheap Imitation) Décor & Costumes: Jasper Johns Lighting: Richard Nelson (1970) Christine Shallenberg (2008)
Sounddance (1975) Music: David Tudor, Toneburst & Untitled (1975/1994) Décor, Lighting, Costumes: Mark Lancaster
Fabrications (1987) Music: Emanuel Dimas de Melo Pimenta, Short Waves & SBbr Décor, Costumes: Dove Bradshaw Lighting: Josh Johnson
CRWDSPCR (1993) Music: John King, blues 99 Décor, Lighting, Costumes: Mark Lancaster
Ocean (1994) Music: David Tudor,Soundings: Ocean Diary and Andrew Culver, Ocean 1–95 Décor, Lighting, Costumes: Marsha Skinner
BIPED (1999) Music: Gavin Bryars, Biped Décor: Paul Kaiser, Shelley Eshkar Costumes: Suzanne Gallo Lighting: Aaron Copp
Split Sides (2003) Music: Radiohead, Sigur Rós Décor: Robert Heishman, Catherine Yass Costumes: James Hall Lighting: James F. Ingalls
Views on Stage (2004) Music: John Cage, ASLSP and Music for Two Décor: Ernesto Neto, Other Animal Costumes: James Hall Lighting: Josh Johnson
eyeSpace (2006) Music: Mikel Rouse, International Cloud Atlas Décor: Henry Samelson, Blues Arrive Not Anticipating What Transpires Even Between Themselves Costumes: Henry Samelson Lighting: Josh Johnson
eyeSpace (2007) Music: David Behrman, Long Throw and/or Annea Lockwood, Jitterbug Décor: Daniel Arsham, ODE/EON Costumes: Daniel Arsham Lighting: Josh Johnson
XOVER (2007) Music: John Cage, Aria (1958) and Fontana Mix (1958) Décor & Costumes: Robert Rauschenberg, Plank Lighting: Josh Johnson
Nearly Ninety (2009) Music: John Paul Jones, Takehisa Kosugi, Sonic Youth Décor: Benedetta Tagliabue Costumes: Romeo Gigli for io ipse idem Lighting: Brian MacDevitt Video Design: Franc Aleu
2008 Honorary Doctorate of Fine Arts from Bard College, Annandale-on-Hudson, NY
2007 Nelson A. Rockefeller Award, Purchase College School of the Arts, State University of New York Montgomery Fellow (Arts and Literature), Dartmouth College, Hanover NH
2006 Honorary Doctorate of Fine Arts, Cornish College of the Arts, Seattle WA
2005 Honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis MN Praemium Imperiale, Tokyo
2004 Officier of the Légion d'Honneur, France
2003 Edward MacDowell Medal in interdisciplinary art, the MacDowell Colony, Peterborough NH
2002 Carlisle Hart Award for Outstanding Achievement in the Arts (Arts & Business Council), New York NY MATA (Music at the Anthology) Award, New York NY Medal of the City of Dijon, France
2001 Coat of Arms of the City of Mulhouse, France La Grande Médaille de la Ville de Paris (echelon vermeil) from the Mayor of Paris Career Transition for Dancers Award, New York NY Herald Archangel Award, Glasgow, Scotland Honorary degree from Edith Cowan University, Perth, Western Australia
2000 Nijinsky Special Prize, Monaco The Dorothy and Lillian Gish Prize, New York NY Named a “Living Legend” by the Library of Congress, Washington DC
1999 Premio Internazionale “Gino Tani,” Rome Handel Medallion from the Mayor of New York City NY Isadora Duncan Dance Award for Lifetime Achievement, San Francisco CA Fellow of the Academy of Performing Arts, Hong Kong The key to the City of Montpellier, France
1998 Bagley Wright Fund Established Artists Award, Seattle WA
1997 Barnard College Medal of Distinction, New York NY Grand Prix of the Société des Auteurs et Compositeurs Dramatiques, France
1996 Nellie Cornish Arts Achievement Award from his alma mater, Cornish College of the Arts, Seattle WA
1995 Honorary degree from Wesleyan University, Middletown CT Carina Ari Award (Grand Prix Video Danse with Elliot Caplan), Stockholm, Sweden Golden Lion of the Venice Biennale, Italy
1993 Inducted into the National Museum of Dance C.V. Whitney Hall of Fame in Saratoga Springs, NY Dance and Performance Award for Best Performance by a Visiting Artist, London, England Medal of Honor from the Universidad Complutense of Madrid, Spain (With John Cage, posthumously) the Wexner Prize of the Wexner Center for the Arts at Ohio State University, Columbus OH New York Dance and Performance Award (“Bessie”), New York NY Tiffany Award from the International Society of Performing Arts Administrators, New York NY
1990 National Medal of Arts, Washington DC Porselli Prize, Italy Digital Dance Premier Award, London, England Award of Merit from the Association of Performing Arts Presenters, New York NY
1989 Chevalier of the Légion d'Honneur, France
1988 Dance/USA National Honor, New York NY
1987 Algur H. Meadows Award for Excellence in the Arts, Southern Methodist University, Dallas TX
1985 Laurence Olivier Award for Best New Dance Production (Pictures), London, England Kennedy Center Honors, Washington DC MacArthur Fellowship from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, Chicago IL
1984 Inducted as an Honorary Member into the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters, New York NY
1983 The Mayor of New York’s Award of Honor for Arts and Culture, New York NY
1982 The Samuel H. Scripps/American Dance Festival Award, Durham NC Commandeur de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres, France
1977 Capezio Award, New York NY
1975 New York State Award, Albany NY
1972 BITEF Award, Belgrade, Yugoslavia Honorary degree from the University of Illinois, Champaign/Urbana IL
1966 Gold Medal for Choreographic Invention at the Fourth International Festival of Dance, Paris
1964 Medal of the Society for the Advancement of Dancing in Sweden, Stockholm
1960 Dance Magazine Award, New York NY
1959 & 1954 Fellowships from the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, New York NY
Category:1919 births Category:2009 deaths Category:American choreographers Category:Ballets by Merce Cunningham Category:Black Mountain College faculty Category:Kennedy Center honorees Category:LGBT dancers Category:LGBT people from the United States Category:MacArthur Fellows Category:Modern dancers Category:National Museum of Dance Hall of Fame inductees Category:Officiers of the Légion d'honneur Category:People from Centralia, Washington Category:United States National Medal of Arts recipients Category:National Dance Award winners Category:Guggenheim Fellows Category:Wesleyan University people Category:Cornish College of the Arts faculty Category:Cornish College of the Arts alumni
ca:Merce Cunningham cs:Merce Cunningham de:Merce Cunningham es:Merce Cunningham fa:مرس کانینگهام fr:Merce Cunningham fy:Merce Cunningham it:Merce Cunningham he:מרס קנינגהם ka:მერს კანინგემი nl:Merce Cunningham ja:マース・カニンガム no:Merce Cunningham pl:Merce Cunningham pt:Merce Cunningham ru:Каннингем, Мерс fi:Merce Cunningham sv:Merce Cunningham tr:Merce Cunningham uk:Мерс КаннінгемThis text is licensed under the Creative Commons CC-BY-SA License. This text was originally published on Wikipedia and was developed by the Wikipedia community.
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