Pletts: A letter to John Cage

Hello, my friend. It’s been a while since we laughed. During opening week of the 76th Aspen Music Festival, I thank you for accomplishing so much for classical music. You’re now called the “most influential composer of the second half of the 20th century.” About time.

My favorite evening together was in the orchestra pit at the Theatre de la Ville in Paris in 1989 when Merce (a dancer, your life-long partner) received the Legion of Honor earlier that day. The musicians’ backs were to the stage, while looking at computers. To make music, they tracked a tiny violinist traversing their screens. During a rare intermission — for usually the dance company had none — I had dragged my host Burt down the steep aisle to meet you. He was introducing IBM personal computers to France and was grumpy from people not wanting them. He also disliked modern dance. So, I thought if he met you … you of course put your hand up and pulled a reluctant stranger into the orchestra. Remember? After magic minutes with you, he bounded up to his seat, watching the second half like a hawk. Afterwards, he took the cast to dinner. His wife kicked me under the table watching him fit in. Your enthusiasm changed much quickly.

We met in 1972 when I was a dance student at the Cunningham studio in New York City. I took the beginner class late on Fridays, after my ballet classes so I could watch artists set up for Friday night performances. I’d sit on that side bench putting my shoes on forever, afraid to ask at the desk if I could stay, with not enough cash for a ticket. Watching you set up was infinitely better. Your complete belief in creating on the spot with no preparation was astounding. You noticed me and chuckled, understanding my ruse.

You and Merce were renowned, of course, for never rehearsing your music with the dance ahead of time. He choreographed, the dancers learned complicated steps, based on timing and space between them, then you showed up just before performing with sound.

From our first meeting, you were always kind. This winter, in 2025, I finally ordered your book, MUSICAGE (I apologize it took so long) and read your words. I often wondered about your tremendous influence on music. I’m grasping now that because you were relentlessly ardent about listening and making sounds you heard, you consequently forged a path through a few hundred years of making music another way. Historians say you undid a long hold on our listening minds, but that was a result of your quest, not your goal. Am I right? You were so curious and positive!

It took ages to want to understand you, because I dislike being avantgarde. People can be dismissive, and that hurts. We know that new images of man begin in the minds of prophets, mystics, visionary scientists, and artists … culture springs from the depths we traverse. So why reject what’s different in art? I couldn’t fathom why you liked experimenting. Did you ever mind forging through for listeners without much love in return until you were long gone? But then you were male and it was the seventies, an abundant time for art — a saner time than now.

Describing the Chinese composer Tan Dun, you wrote: “What is very little heard in European or Western music is the presence of sound as the voice of nature … we are led to hear in our music human beings talking only to themselves. It is clear in his music that sounds are central to the nature in which we live, but to which we have too long not listened. His music is one we need as the East and West come together as our one home.” You call Dun’s music microtonal.

So, John, you gave us at least three gifts — listening with an open heart, inspiring artists to be ourselves and demonstrating a return to respecting Nature through microtonal music. Knowing you, contrary to the belief that artists are selfish, you were not. You lived courageously for all of us so I must get on with my inventiveness.

With my love,

Sarah

Sarah A. Pletts is the co-founder with Janet Garwood of the Sarah Pletts Dance Theatre, Ltd. The International, a Colorado-based nonprofit since 1984.