“To me, the biggest lasting influence Cage has is the idea that music is listening. That music isn't only the notes on a page that a composer puts there. It's the sound of a leaf blower; of the rain hitting the windshield coming out from under an overpass; the slowly developing choir of cicadas. It not only empowered composers to work with found sound and non-traditional sounds with greater freedom, but it also empowered the audience to find beauty in the chaos and noise of an industrialized world. Basically that anything can happen and anything is music.”