Collection context
Summary
- Creators:
- Cage, John and Cage, John
- Abstract:
- This collection includes books, correspondence, journals, newsletters, pamphlets, ephemera and realia related to Cage's interest in the study of mushrooms.
- Extent:
- 15.5 Linear Feet 15 boxes, 1 painting
- Language:
- English
- Preferred citation:
-
John Cage Mycology Collection. MS 74. Special Collections and Archives, University Library, University of California, Santa Cruz.
Background
- Scope and content:
-
This collection includes a small amount of biographical material, some miscellaneous music programs, incoming correspondence, journals, newsletters, pamphlets, books, artwork, ephemera and realia is all related to mushrooms and mushroom collecting.
- Biographical / historical:
-
John Cage was an American composer and music theorist, as well as an amateur mycologist. He was born in Los Angeles on the 5th of September, 1912. He attended Pomona College, but dropped out after two years and headed to Europe. In 1930, while still in Paris, Cage became interested in both modern music and modern painting. Soon he left and went to Mallorca, where he began painting and writing music himself. The following year he returned to California, settling in at Pacific Palisades. While writing music for the piano, he met Richard Buhlig, who was the first pianist to play the Opus II of Schoenberg. Though Buhlig was not a teacher of composition, he agreed to help Cage with writing music. From Buhlig he went to Henry Cowell [1933-34] and, at Cowell's suggestion, to Adolph Weiss in preparation for studies with Arnold Schoenberg. In order to work with Schoenberg, he gave up painting and concentrated on music.
After two years Cage became an assistant to the film maker Oskar Fischinger, while doing library research work. He married Xenia Andreyevna Kashevaroff, a student of the bookbinder Hazel Dreis. By 1937 he had found a group of modern dancers who were interested in his music and could put it to use, resulting in his move to Seattle, where he was given a job as a dance accompanist at the Cornish School. Within a couple of years Cage and his wife moved back south to San Francisco, and then in 1941 they moved to Chicago, where he joined the faculty of Moholy Nagy's School of Design in Chicago. While there he was commissioned to write the sound effects music for a CBS Columbia Workshop Play. He was told by the sound effects engineer that anything he could imagine was possible. What he wrote, however, was impractical and too expensive; and the work had to be rewritten for percussion orchestra, copied, and rehearsed in the few remaining days and nights before its broadcast. The play, incidentally, was The City Wears a Slouch Hat by Kenneth Patchen. In 1942 Cage and his wife Xenia moved to New York, where within a couple of years he began working with Merce Cunningham. He and Xenia were divorced in 1945.
In the late 1950's Cage taught occasionally at New York's New School for Social Research. It was during that time that he met Guy Nearing, who was to become his mentor in the study of mushrooms and other wild edible plants. With three other friends they founded the New York Mycological Society. In 1964 Cage was given the North American Mycological Association's Award for Contributions to Amateur Mycology, which is "given annually to recognize a person who has contributed extraordinarily to the advancement of amateur mycology." It was, however, through Cage's enthusiasm for the work of English master gardener Alan Chadwick and his "Student Garden Project" on the new campus of the University of California at Santa Cruz that Special Collections received his "collection of mushroom books and mushroomiana".
John Cage died in New York City on August 12th, 1992.
- Acquisition information:
- Gift of John Cage in 1971.
- Processing information:
-
Processed by UCSC OAC Unit. Completed April 2007.
- Rules or conventions:
- Describing Archives: A Content Standard
Indexed terms
Access and use
- Restrictions:
-
Collection is open for research.
- Terms of access:
-
Copyright for the items in this collection is owned by the creators and their heirs. Reproduction or distribution of any work protected by copyright beyond that allowed by fair use requires permission from the copyright owner. It is the responsibility of the user to determine whether a use is fair use, and to obtain any necessary permissions. For more information see UCSC Special Collections and Archives policy on Reproduction and Use.
- Preferred citation:
-
John Cage Mycology Collection. MS 74. Special Collections and Archives, University Library, University of California, Santa Cruz.
- Location of this collection:
-
Special Collections and Archives, University Library1156 High StreetSanta Cruz, CA 95064, US
- Contact:
- (831) 459-2547