This selection of over 500 letters gives us the life of John Cage with all the intelligence, wit, and inventiveness that made him such an important and groundbreaking composer and performer. The missives range from lengthy reports of his early trips to Europe in the 1930s through his years with the dancer Merce Cunningham, and shed new light on his growing eminence as an iconic performance artist of the American avant-garde. Cage's joie de vivre resounds in these letters―fully annotated throughout―in every phase of his career, and includes correspondence with Peter Yates, David Tudor, and Pierre Boulez, among others.

Above all, they reveal his passionate interest in people, ideas, and the arts. The voice is one we recognize from his writings: singular, profound, irreverent, and funny. Not only will readers take pleasure in Cage's correspondence with and commentary about the people and events of a momentous and transformative time in the arts, they will also share in his meditations on the very nature of art. A deep pleasure to read, this volume presents an extraordinary portrait of a complex, brilliant man who challenged and changed the artistic currents of the twentieth century.

REVIEWS

"This book is an introduction to Cagean aesthetics to equal Silence, his 1960 collection of writings In words, as in music, Cage still opens our ears and minds."―Alastair Macaulay, The New York Times

"The Selected Letters of John Cage, a wide-ranging selection of correspondence edited by Laura Kuhn, may stand both as Cage's best biography to date and an unfailingly engaging introduction to his thinking. It demystifies Cage the far-removed guru and restores to us an eternally curious human being with a sharp, original mind and a gift for language that is apparent from the first letter in the book."―Tim Page, The New York Review of Books

"Cage's letters are charged with the ecstasy of the found, the joy of the unexpected, the unanticipated connection, and it spills over into his relationships with his fellows and friends (including some amazing women), among them the giants of music in his time."―Tim Pfaff, The Bay Area Reporter

"Each decade of letters is introduced with un-precious biographical narrative: how in the mid 1930s 'Cage was broke more often than not'; how in the late 1950s he won an Italian TV game show with mushrooms as his special subject; how in the early 1980s his neighbours John Lennon and Yoko Ono recommended he take up a macrobiotic diet."―Kate Molleson, Gramophone

"I might argue, from a Zen perspective, that music that says nothing also says everything. And so does Cage's work."―American Record Guide

• Publisher ‏ : ‎ Wesleyan University Press; Annotated edition (June 7, 2016)
• Language ‏ : ‎ English
• Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 674 pages
• ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0819575913
• Item Weight (incl packaging)‏ : ‎ 3.4 pounds
• Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6.2 x 1.9 x 9.4 inches