John Cage
b. 5 September 1912, Los Angeles, California, USA, d. 12 August 1992, New York, USA. Renowned as an avant garde composer and experimental musician, Cage was also a poet, teacher, writer, commercial artist and lecturer. After studying with Arnold Schoenberg and Adolph Weiss in the '30s, he moved on to his own compositions, heavily influenced by the work of Edgar Varese. By his '20s he was a leading exponent of the musique concrete movement that combined electronics with traditional sounds and would lead to the development of the synthesizer. His ‘utilized sounds’ included doors slamming, pouring water and radio static and he is credited with the invention of the prepared piano technique, wherein the piano had everyday objects lodged inside the instrument in order to produce unusual sounds when played. He studied Zen Buddhism in the Far East during the '50s and used the principles of the I Ching (Book Of Changes) to develop his own brand of experimental music. Far and away his most famous piece of music is ‘4 minutes 53 seconds’, which consists of complete silence (barring natural environmental sounds) during its duration. The performer, usually a pianist, is expected to show the audience which of the piece's four movements he is ‘performing’ by the use of his fingers, as if a composer. Cage encouraged performers to add their own artistic input to the composition. He remained one of the biggest influences on many of the electronic and industrial exponents of the '70s and '80s, from the Grateful Dead through to the Pet Shop Boys, until his death in 1992. 
Further reading: FOR THE BIRDS, John Cage and Daniel Charles. JOHN CAGE, Heinz-Klaus Metzger and Rainer Riehn.