Zen and the Music of John Cage: A Talk by James Pritchett

Join us at the Woo Ju Memorial Library for Zen and the Music of John Cage: A Talk by James Pritchett, an insightful discussion of the intersection of Zen Buddhism and the avant-garde compositions of John Cage.

James Pritchett was one of the first musicologists to deal with John Cage’s music on its own terms—as music. His research presented the first clear documentation of Cage’s chance operations of the 1950s, and provided a model for the analytical study of this work. Pritchett is the author of The music of John Cage (Cambridge University Press, 1992), the only critical study of all Cage’s work. He has also written on the work of Morton Feldman and pianist/composer David Tudor. Pritchett is married to the composer Frances White, and they have collaborated on various works. He designed and built the software for her interactive installation Resonant landscape, and he created the text and video for her instrumental theater trilogy The old rose reader, As night falls, and The book of roses and memory. You can read more of his writing on music at The piano in my life (RoseWhiteMusic.com/piano).