John Cage

In 1938, Cage took jobs accompanying dancers at Seattle's Cornish School and the Mills summer sessions, both of which ended in 1941. He also began doing music for dancer Merce Cunningham, a position he kept for the rest of his life.

National awareness of him began during the 1940 Mills summer session when, in the midst of concerts by the renowned harpist Marcel Grandjany and the Pro Arte Quartet, he did a percussion program in which dancers were replaced by moving lights created by summer session colleague Gordon Webber from Moholy-Nagy's Chicago Institute of Design. The world-class quality of the series' other events along with pre-concert publicity listing the concert's instruments (which included brake drums, rice bowls and a siren) elicited a review from Time magazine. An invitation from Moholy-Nagy to teach at the Institute was followed by a 1943 concert at the New York Museum of Modern Art, which established Cage's notoriety world-wide.

Where Cage Really Got His Start: the July 15, 1940 concert at Mills was announced by small articles in local papers. The Oakland Tribune offered a photo (above) of (from left to right) Lou Harrison, Cage, and (front) Doris Dennison, Margaret Janset and Cage's wife Xenia. The caption noted that "flower pots and frying pans are a few of the instruments" which will be put to use.

His relationship with Mills was reestablished periodically. Not long after leaving the college, he attempted to found a center for experimental music on its campus. He wrote President Aurelia Reinhardt--he described her as tall, imposing, a brilliant conversationalist, and the owner of an impressive collection of Gertrude Stein books--in order to propose it. Despite her interest, a lack of funds caused the project to be abandoned. (In January 1941 he did, however, institute a Mills Extension course in percussion which he taught one afternoon a week. The cost was twelve dollars for fifteen meetings.)

When demand for his music increased, he decided it was time to find a publisher. He went to Schirmers, where Hans Heinsheimer told him that the only piece he liked was the Suite for toy piano. But, he said, the title would have to be changed. Cage told him not to bother.

Looking through the Yellow Pages, he decided to call Peters Editions, having remembered hearing that the publisher's chief officer, Walter Hinrichsen, was interested in American composers. Hinrichsen told him he was happy to get the call, since his wife had always wanted him to publish his works. They had lunch and signed a contract the same day. (Evelyn Hinrichsen had been a student at Mills during the time Cage had taught there. When her husband died, she assumed the firm's presidency.)

There were other connections. Doris Dennison, a member of Cage's traveling percussion group when he first performed at Mills, became the College's dance department accompanist. Arch Lauterer, a Mills drama professor, co-directed Four Walls (1944), a dance play using Cage's music.

Cage, says The New Grove Dictionary of American Music, had a greater impact on world music than any other American composer of the twentieth century.