A recording project of the 'Etudes Australes' (Books I and II) by John Cage (1912--1992)

John Cage was an avant-garde American composer whose work and philosophy of music revolutionized mid-20th century music. His passionate belief in pursuing originality, always creating something which had not yet been done, is reflected in all of his compositions throughout an amazingly accomplished career.; Among these works, the Etudes Australes is his most significant solo piano work. He composed these etudes in 1974-75 and dedicated them to a long time friend, the German pianist Grete Sultan. Cage used a star chart of the Southern Hemisphere and a compositional technique based on his own variations of I Ching technique to translate stars as selected pitches.; This writer has found only one dissertation focused on Etudes Australes, Margaret Ellen Rose's "Coming to Terms with the Twentieth Century Using a Nineteenth Century Instrument: Virtuosity, Gesture and Visual Rhetoric in Contemporary Piano," compiled in 1987. Rose's dissertation includes brief and general information on performance practice relating to Etudes Australes. Also, the writer found only a few recordings of Etudes Australes. The limited number of recordings and information on this work may be one of the leading causes of its obscurity.; The purpose of this recording project is to present a recording, a brief biographical sketch of John Cage with a discussion of style and compositional techniques in Etudes Australes, a performance guide, and a phone interview with an expert on John Cage. The writer believes that this recording project will motivate and inspire pianists to approach Cage's great contribution to piano literature with much deeper appreciation and enthusiasm.