John Cage,

born in 1912 in Los Angeles and died in 1992 in New York, he was a student of Henry Cowell and Arnold Schönberg. After Schönberg, there are only a few composer in the history of the new music with a similar importance for the composing in the narrow wider environment and beyond the field of music. The idea of own preferences and aversions and to regard all individuals, living creatures, stones and sounds as centers of being has helped to develop an ability to extract a character for each of the particular artistic materials and techniques.

source: Reinhard Oelschlegel in "Komponisten der Gegenwart"