Proms 2012 Prom 47: Cage Centenary Celebration

To mark the centenary of John Cage’s birth, Ilan Volkov has curated a programme that reflects the composer’s iconoclastic thinking, fertile imagination and arresting humour.

John Tilbury, who has for decades been associated with Cage’s work tonight plays the exquisitely beautiful Concerto for Prepared Piano and Orchestra. Cassette players and plucked cactuses are just two examples of the blindingly original yet almost naively simple thinking that saw Cage – wittingly or otherwise – upturn practically every musical rule in the book.

Discover the Music Download a short audio guide published on the day about a key work in tonight’s Prom: Tom Service talks about John Cage.