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John Cage's Los Angeles

John Cage spent much of his youth in Los Angeles. Click through the interactive timeline below to learn more about John Cage's Los Angeles. Full story | Music | Inspiration | Critic's Notebook | Events

John Cage : 1912-1992

Good Samaritan Hospital

616 W. 43rd Place, South Central

Long Beach

2708 Moss Ave., Eagle Rock

KNX, Hollywood

Los Angeles High School, 4650 W. Olympic Blvd.

Hollywood Bowl

Pomona College, 347 W. 6th St., Claremont

Santa Monica Women's Club 1210 4th St.

UCLA

USC

116 N. Rockingham Drive, Brentwood

1735 Michaeltorena Ave.

Los Angeles Times

Arts and Crafts Co-operative Shop, 2610 W. 7th St.

Richard Buhlig's studio, 102 S. Carondelet St.

Schindler House, 835 N. Kings Rd., West Hollywood

1508 Georgina Ave., Santa Monica

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John Cage's Los Angeles

Good Samaritan Hospital, 1225 Wilshire Blvd.

John Milton Cage Jr., born, Sept. 5, 1912.

Photo: Good Samaritan Hospital in Los Angeles in June 1937. Credit: File photo / Los Angeles Times.

616 W. 43rd Place, South Central

The Cage family home when John was born.

Photo: John Cage in 1915. Credit: John Cage Trust.

Long Beach

The Cages lived in Long Beach when John Milton Cage Sr., an inventor, broke the underwater record for a submarine by 12 hours on June 11, 1913, surfacing before a large cheering crowd and being congratulated by the mayor of city.

Photo: Front page story of the Los Angeles Times on June 12, 1913. Credit: Los Angeles Times.

2708 Moss Ave., Eagle Rock

The Cage's move here sometime around 1923, after a stint in Detroit.

Photo: John Cage in 1921. Credit: John Cage Trust.

KNX, Hollywood

In 1924, two years after KNX was founded, Cage began a popular weekly Boy Scout show on the radio station.

Photo: An early KNX radio mic. Credit: KNX 1070 Newsradio.

Los Angeles High School, 4650 W. Olympic Blvd.

Cage graduated in 1928 with the highest scholastic record in the school’s history. He studied music there with Fannie Francis Dillon, a concert pianist and pioneering female composer.

Photo: Los Angeles High School circa 1937. Credit: File photo / Los Angeles Times.

Hollywood Bowl

At 15, Cage represented Los Angeles High in the Southern California interscholastic oratory competition, winning first prize for a speech about America’s military presence in Nicaragua meant to protect our economic interests, which he called "a crazed congregation of Gold-Worshippers."

Photo: John Cage, top right, and others accept their awards in a photo that appeared in the Los Angeles Times on December 22, 1927. Credit: Los Angeles Times.

Pomona College, 347 W. 6th St., Claremont

Cage lived here 1928-30, his sophomore and final year at Pomona College

Photo: John Cage in 1930. Credit: John Cage Trust.

Santa Monica Women's Club 1210 4th St.

Site of Cage’s first public performance, in 1932 or ‘33, shortly after returning from a year bumming around Europe. The program included the premiere a two Cage songs with texts by Gertrude Stein and Aeschylus.

Photo: John Cage in 1932. Credit: John Cage Trust.

UCLA

Cage studied with composer Arnold Schoenberg at UCLA between 1935 and 1938.

Photo: University of California at Los Angeles Westwood Campus circa 1937. Credit: File Photo / Los Angeles Times.

USC

Cage continued his studies with Schoenberg during the same time at USC.

University of Southern California, circa 1933 Credit: File Photo / Los Angeles Times.

116 N. Rockingham Drive, Brentwood

Schoenberg’s home; Cage attended classes and dinners there with the composer.

Photo: Austrian composer Arnold Schoenberg circa 1922. Credit: Imagno / Getty Images.

1735 Michaeltorena Ave.

This is where Evenings on the Roof (now called Monday Evening Concerts) began in the attic of Peter Yate’s Silverlake home; Cage attended many new music concerts here.

1940 Census showing Peter Yates signature next to his address, 1735 Michaeltorena Ave. Credit: US Census.

Los Angeles Times

Cage’s mother, Crete, was the women’s club editor of The Times in the 1930s.

Photo: Los Angeles Times building, circa 1937. Credit: Los Angeles Times.

Arts and Crafts Co-operative Shop, 2610 W. 7th St.

The downtown shop, run by a collective of women, was led by Cage’s mother, Crete.

Photo: Crete Cage (nee Lucretia Harvey). Credit: John Cage Trust.

Richard Buhlig's studio, 102 S. Carondelet St.

Buhlig was perhaps L.A.’s most important pianist in the early 30s, although is now forgotten. He was an important mentor of Cage and Cage organized concerts here.

Photo: Portrait of Richard Buhlig circa 1930. Credit: Johan Hagemeyer / Online Archives of California / The Bancroft Library.

Schindler House, 835 N. Kings Rd., West Hollywood

Cage lived here for a brief time in 1933 with friend Don Sample. Cage later carried on an affair with Schindler’s estranged wife, Pauline, and presented a concert of Japanese court music at the Schindler House.

Photo: Rudolf Schindler's home home on Kings Road in Los Angeles. Credit: Randy Leffingwell / Los Angeles Times

1508 Georgina Ave., Santa Monica

Helen Dreis’ bookbinding collective where Cage and Xenia lived briefly in 1936; Cage organized the bookbinders into a percussion ensemble and held his first percussion concert here.

Photo: Marriage license between John Cage and Xenia Andreyevna Kashevaroff June 7, 1935 in Yuma, Arizona. Credit: John Cage Trust.

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