Students in John Cage’s experimental composition
class, New School for Social Research, New York, New
York
Date
summer 1958
Type
photograph
John Cage taught experimental composition at the New
School for Social Research
multiple times between 1956 and 1959. This photograph shows Jackson Mac Low (right) and Dick
Higgins (left), two students in the catalytic Summer 1958
cohort, which also included Allan Kaprow, George Brecht,
and Al Hansen. Each week, Cage asked the students to
compose a score in response to a prompt, which might
specify readymade “instruments” (like radios) or chance
procedures (like tossing coins). The students would
perform these rough-and-ready scores with Cage during
class and debate their qualities. In this photograph,
Higgins and Mac Low play a toy battleship and whirler
tube, respectively, in a realization of an Al Hansen
composition created in response to one of Cage’s
assignments.
Students in John Cage’s experimental composition
class, New School for Social Research, New York, New
York, summer 1958. . In
The Scores Project: Experimental Notation in Music,
Art, Poetry, and Dance, 1950–1975, ed. Michael Gallope, Natilee Harren, and John
Hicks. Los Angeles: Getty Research Institute, 2025.
https://www.getty.edu/publications/scores/object-index/558/.
The Scores Project
Experimental Notation in Music, Art, Poetry, and Dance, 1950–1975
