For American composer Henry Cowell (1897-1965), the piano wasn’t just an instrument where you sat down at the piano stool and played the keys. He used the pianist as the sound generator for all kinds of sounds on the piano.

Usually when we write about musicians and artists, we write about how one inspires the other, either how an artist might choose a musical work as the inspiration for his work or how a composer might choose to portray a

The other day I was talking about John Cage’s infamous work 4’33” with one of my students, while giving the student an overview of music history. When we got to 20th century music, it was the student, not me, who

John Cage, the legendary composer of experimental sounds and silences was utterly fascinated by mushrooms. Apparently, Cage’s fungi obsession originated during the Depression. “In California, I had no money. I was living in Carmel and around my shack grew mushrooms,