by John Bickerton | Dec 31, 2025 | American Avant-Garde, Composers, Experimental Music
Four Systems is a landmark “open-form” graphic score composed by Earle Brown on the afternoon of January 20, 1954. It was created as a spontaneous birthday present for pianist David Tudor while Brown and John Cage were backstage at the Brooklyn Academy of...
by John Bickerton | May 14, 2025 | American Avant-Garde, Composers, Experimental Music
John Cage’s Radio Music, composed in 1956, is intended to be performed as a solo or ensemble piece for 1 to 8 performers, each using one radio. The piece has a specified duration of exactly six minutes. Radio Music was composed during a period when Cage heavily...
by John Bickerton | May 8, 2025 | American Avant-Garde, Composers, Experimental Music
John Cage’s Variations IV, composed in 1963, is the fourth work in his series of eight Variations written between 1958 and 1967. It is considered the second part of a group of three works, preceded by Atlas Eclipticalis (1961–62) and followed by...
by John Bickerton | May 6, 2025 | American Avant-Garde, Composers, Experimental Music
John Cage’s Atlas Eclipticalis, composed in 1961–62, is an orchestral work that can also be performed by any ensemble, whether chamber or orchestral, and with any type and number of instruments. It is regarded as the first in a sequence of three works, followed...
by John Bickerton | Apr 30, 2025 | American Avant-Garde, Composers, Experimental Music
The New York School refers to an informal group of four American composers who gained international recognition in the 1950s: John Cage, Earle Brown, Morton Feldman, and Christian Wolff. Cage was the senior figure in this group and held a reputation for his...
