September 5, 1912: John Cage; September 5, 1961: Marc-André Hamelin
Well, I will hope that by the time this is posted, there are already countless tributes to Cage born 111 years ago on this date. Needless to say, he was often a participant at the festivals though curiously not at the first three, neither at New Music New York 1979, nor at NMA 1980 Minneapolis or NMA 1981 San Francisco.
That was remedied quite well at NMA1982 Chicago where he was the composer in residence, coinciding with his 70th birthday. He appeared both on tape and on a live broadcast during the presentations to national radio created by Charles Amirkhanian and Joan La Barbara.
Cage presented two works, (three if you include visual art), one a sound installation that was spread out through the city of Chicago named “A Dip in the…