[ jump ahead to
/ the podcast
/ the actual mp3 files for the shows
/ 4'33" performance suggestions
/ other tribute events
/ John Cage resources
/ complete show notes (
Ep1 /
Ep2 /
Ep3 /
Ep4 /
Ep5 )
/ about this site
]
John Cage was born on 05-Sep-1912 and died on 12-Aug-1992. Cage was a towering figure in 20th Century music composition, with a body of work that challenges the concept of music itself. In celebration of his 100th birthday, in September 2012 WREK recognized Cage with a series of radio shows reviewing his work, joining many such tribute events that happened around the world.
At the time, the archival recordings of those WREK shows were available online but only for two weeks. In 2024, this site was created to offer up the shows again. The content below has been adapted from the show announcements and archives that were published at the time, and now augmented with a podcast file so you can queue it up on your podcast aggregator and listen that way.
Here's the RSS XML file for podcasting integration. Using your favorite podcast aggegrator app (iTunes, PocketCasts, etc.), add this podcast by pointing it to this RSS feed:
https://www.johncagecentennial.com/podcast-rss.xmlYou can also try searching for "John Cage Centennial", but since we aren't doing any fancy SEO stuff here it might not find it. It's better to just use the "add RSS URL" feature of your app and paste in the above URL. If it's just not working for you, e.g. due to Spotify's dysfunction, the direct audio file downloads are below.
WREK Atlanta is the Georgia Tech student radio station, broadcasting at 100,000 Watts on 91.1 FM in metro Atlanta, and on the internet at www.wrek.org . The five shows were captured using WREK's automatic archiving system, and are now offered up here for download. (Note: the original 2012 air dates are shown below.)
| Episode / original air date | mp3 audio download | content notes |
|---|---|---|
| Episode 1 (Sun Sept 2nd 7pm-9pm) |
 download mp3, 128 min, 123 MB |
career overview see full show notes below |
| Episode 2 (Mon Sept 3rd 12am-1:30am) |
download mp3, 81 min, 80 MB |
early Cage 1939-1948; tributes from 1993 see full show notes below |
| Episode 3 (Tue Sept 4th 12am-1:30am) |
download mp3, 85 min, 81 MB |
Variations IV (1965) album in entirety see full show notes below |
| Episode 4 (Tue Sept 4th 10pm-11pm) |
download mp3, 59 min, 57 MB |
LIVE performance featuring Stuart Gerber, Jan Baker, Caleb Herron, Robby Kee and Robert Cheatham see full show notes below |
| Episode 5 (Wed Sept 5th 12am-1:30am) |
download mp3, 107 min, 102 MB |
Indeterminacy (1959) album in entirety see full show notes below |
Note: during these shows, which aired in 2012, you'll hear frequent mentions of a) finding more information available at WREK.org, b) calling into WREK studio and c) live events happening that week. All of this was back in 2012! If you try it now, you'll get nothing (or a confused DJ answering the phone). All of that reference information formerly at WREK.org is now here at this site, in the sections below.
Special thanks go to the following people for generously providing their recorded material for these shows: Kevin Haller, Scott Watkins and Curt Wells. Thanks to the online resources of UbuWeb and JohnCage.info (see links below) for their excellent archives of Cage music and composition information. And thanks to the Live at WREK crew for an outstanding job during the live event! Finally, thanks to WREK in general for allowing us to do this, in particular we greatly appreciate the efforts of Maria Sotnikova, Kate Godwin and Patrick Stoica.
We expected to get some requests for Cage’s most famous and notorious work, 4’33”, and we invited listeners to experience this composition one of the following ways:
There were other Cage tribute events happening in Atlanta that week.
On Wednesday, Sept 5th, there was a tribute to John Cage at the Krog Tunnel in Cabbagetown (the tunnel was also “born” in 1912). See the Facebook event page, and a Youtube video of the event.
For four nights, Sept 6th-9th, The Goat Farm presented a series of events in honor of John Cage, with performances by Atlanta Poet’s Group, Chamber Cartel, Bent Frequency and Core Performance Group. For more information see the Facebook event page for the series, and Creative Loafing's brief article (and thanks to CL for maintaining their online archive, years later).
These are the expansive notes I worked off from for the radio show, perhaps useful as a reference while listening.
Warning: all of the johncage.info links below are broken since that site went defunct later in 2012. You can recover that information on the last archive.org snapshot of johncage.info before it vanished, but you can also check out the John Cage Trust (johncage.org) for good information about the compositions. Links for both are just above in the references section.
[ jump ahead to / Episode 1 / Episode 2 / Episode 3 / Episode 4 / Episode 5 ]
composed (performed?) April 1951
24 performers at 12 radios
http://www.johncage.info/workscage/landscape4.html
interview snippet: use of I Ching
Music Of Changes
composed (performed?) May-Dec 1951
compositional indeterminacy, but fixed performance
first foray into use of I Ching ("E King", "Yee Jing", etc.) divination system
quartet performances involve many musicians but only four are playing at once
Williams Mix, 1952-1953
octophonic, tape splicing; note applause (and boos?)
Variations I, 1958
Indeterminacy, 1959
excerpted here, played in entirety in Episode 5
Lecture on Nothing, 1959
text is part of "Silence" collection of 1939-1961 essays
Kaegan Sparks and Christian Marclay at Philadelphia ICA (U Penn) in 2007, 67m55s
Cartridge Music, 1960
objects instead of needle cartridges inserted into phone arms, act as pickup mics
Atlas Eclipticalis, 1961
use of star charts
(I didn't actually play any of this, I don't think)
Klangexperimente, 1963
no info at all :)
Mureau, 1970
spoken word
(I didn't play any of this)
Mushroom Haiku, from Silence, 1969/1972
(note: show opens with closing minute of Jon Kincaid's excellent Personality Crisis show that preceded us; R.I.P. Jon!)
Imaginary Landscape (No. 1), 1939
2 variable-speed phono turntables, frequency recordings, muted piano and cymbal
Works for Prepared Piano, 1940s
Margaret Leng Tan CD
early (1940-1953) compositions on various types of piano
Second Construction, 1940
Sonatas and Interludes, 1946-1948
prepared piano: screws, bolts, rubber, plastic; 2-3 hours prep; mathematics, proportions, symmetry, nesting
1993 tribute 2-CD set "A Chance Operation" (Discogs)
selections from the ~100 tracks, each one minute in length, likely intended to be played randomly.
Selections from 1993's Caged / Uncaged (A Rock Experimental Homage To John Cage) (Discogs)
Variations IV, 1965
scored by shapes on a clear plastic sheet then cut up and distributed around stage; this method mentioned in one of the Brown/Cage Quartet piece intros
performed in Los Angeles, August 1965; CD/LP are excerpts from 6 hour performance
(note: the audio levels were too low at first but gradually came up after a few minutes)
Compositions performed:
Composed Improvisation for Snare Drum (8 min)
snare drum solo with timing and form subject to chance
performed by Stuart Gerber
more info: John Cage Trust / Samuel Solomon
A selection from 27'10.554" for a percussionist (exactly 15'55.282" long)
instrumentation included standard drum kit, seed rattle, shell wind chime, kalimba (aka thumb piano), dumbek, a piece of granite, a kazoo and three small gongs;
performed by Caleb Herron
more info: John Cage Trust / Samuel Solomon / Wikipedia
Child of Tree (8 min)
composed for instruments made of natural (plant) materials; in this instance, those instruments were pod rattles, wooden water buffalo bell, dried beans and a wood block
performed by Stuart Gerber
more info: John Cage Trust / Samuel Solomon
Fontana Mix (10 min)
synthesizer, iPad, digital recorder, toddler's toy, three tape decks, saxophone, digital samplers, sequencers and mixers
performed by Robby Kee and Robert Cheatham
more info: John Cage Trust
Inlets (10 min, shortened to 5 min by time constraints)
gurgling and bubbling of the conch shells, recording of burning pine cone, one conch shell played briefly as horn
performed by Stuart Gerber, Jan Baker, and Caleb Herron
more info: John Cage Trust / Merce Cunningham Trust
The Year Begins to be Ripe (Solo No. 49 from Song Books) (2 min)
voice and table top, using text from the journal of Henry David Thoreau
performed by Stuart Gerber
more info: John Cage Trust / Wikipedia
both compositional and performance indeterminacy
one story per minute, with speech sped up or slowed down accordingly to fit
speaker and piano were physically separated, on separate stopwatches
fantastic liner notes by Richard Kostelanetz (1992) and Cage (1959) including Zen / boring / 2-4-8 quote
random selections from Kostelanetz book
In 1988, Richard Kostelanetz published a book of interviews with Cage, entitled "Conversing With Cage". I have found that Cage is endlessly fascinating, and in fact while leafing through this book, it seemed like anywhere I happened to land was interesting. Which gave me an idea ...
Throughout the show series I selected quotes from this book at random, using the random number generator at random.org. This isn't exactly a divination system like the I Ching, but it'll do. The copy I used was the second edition, published in 2003 by Routledge press.
I created this site in September 2024, 12 years after the shows aired, when I decided that it would be good to have them available online because I vaguely recalled that the series was actually pretty good, and upon relistening I think my recollection was confirmed!
This site has no advertising, no commenting capability and no search engine optimization. The code within it has no formatting (and no CSS), no javascript or DOM stuff, and both the solitary HTML file (this page) and the podcast RSS XML file were typed by hand into a plain text editor, old school yeeeaaaahhhh. The mp3 files were initially created by WREK's automatic two-week audio archiving system, and then lightly processed by me using the fantastic ffmpeg software (at the Linux command line).
I'm not providing any direct contact info here (so no email address) because all I ever seem to get from that is grief (e.g. spam). So if you want to contact me, I'm Chris Campbell, I'm in Atlanta, and if you are into things like John Cage then you probably already know me, or we are one friend connection away and you can find me.
I hope you enjoy the shows!