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Laura Kuhn talks with Tom Moore, a renowned interpreter of Cage’s music, and especially the composer’s post-1951 works for solo piano and chamber music. Tom first met John Cage in 1982, and theirs turned into a long and happy relationship. As Cage remarked in 1990, “I am delighted that Thomas Moore plays my music, studies and thinks, writes and talks about it. He is an excellent musician, one in whom I have confidence and whose work I enjoy.”

Kuhn had the good fortune to hear Tom perform a program of Cage’s music, which included Cage’s Haikus (1950-1951), at the 12th Annual ReVIEWING Black Mountain College International Conference that took place in Asheville, North Carolina last month under the auspices of the Black Mountain College Museum + Art Center. It’s a charming piece, one that was composed in the period when Cage and Cunningham were spending nearly every summer at Black Mountain College. It’s also not a well-known work, which led to the idea to have Tom Moore join Laura Kuhn for a conversation on “All Things Cage.” Tom not only agreed, but he also agreed to make a new recording of Cage’s Haikus for us to listen to at the end of tonight’s program. To bookend the program, Kuhn’s added an excerpt at the start of the program of Tom’s beautiful performance of Etude I from Cage’s Etudes Australes (1974-1975).