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Sonatas and Interludes is a collection of twenty pieces for prepared piano by American avant-garde composer John Cage (pictured). Forty-five notes are prepared, using screws, nuts, bolts, pieces of rubber and plastic, and an eraser. The pieces were composed between February 1946 and March 1948, shortly after Cage's introduction to Indian philosophy and the teachings of art historian Ananda K. Coomaraswamy, both of which became major influences on the composer's later work. Significantly more complex than his other works for prepared piano, Sonatas and Interludes is generally recognized as one of Cage's finest achievements. The cycle consists of sixteen sonatas and four more freely structured interludes. The aim of the pieces is to express the eight permanent emotions of the rasa Indian tradition. In Sonatas and Interludes, Cage elevated his technique of rhythmic proportions to a new level of complexity. In each sonata a short sequence of natural numbers and fractions defines the structure of the work and that of its parts, informing structures as localized as individual melodic lines. Cage dedicated the work to Maro Ajemian, a pianist and friend, who performed it many times. (Full article...)

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... that marine zoologist Daphne Gail Fautin, described as the world authority on sea anemones (pictured), lives and works in landlocked Lawrence, Kansas?
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In the news

Petro Poroshenko is elected President of Ukraine.
In ice hockey, the World Championship concludes with Russia defeating Finland in the final.
Winter Sleep, directed by Nuri Bilge Ceylan (pictured), wins the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival.
Mahafarid Amir Khosravi is executed after being convicted in the largest fraud investigation in Iran since the 1979 Revolution.
In rugby union, the Heineken Cup concludes with Toulon defeating Saracens in the final.

Ongoing: Ukrainian unrest – California killings – Balkan flooding

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On this day...

May 27: Children's Day in Nigeria

1644 – Manchu regent Dorgon defeated rebel leader Li Zicheng of the Shun dynasty at the Battle of Shanhai Pass, allowing the Manchus to enter and conquer the capital city of Beijing.
1799 – War of the Second Coalition: Austrian forces defeated the French and captured the strategically important town of Winterthur, Switzerland.
1874 – The first group of the Dorsland Trek, a series of explorations undertaken by Boers in search of political independence and better living conditions, departed South Africa for Angola.
1930 – Standing at 319 metres (1,047 ft), New York City's Chrysler Building (pictured) opened as the world's tallest building before it was surpassed by the Empire State Building 11 months later.
1983 – A massive explosion at an illegal fireworks factory near Benton, Tennessee, US, killed eleven people and caused damage within a radius of several miles.

More anniversaries: May 26 – May 27 – May 28

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An image of NGC 4449, highlighting its qualities as a starburst galaxy. NGC 4449, an irregular galaxy in the constellation Canes Venatici located about 12 million light years from Earth, has a rate of star formation twice that of the Milky Way's satellite galaxy, the Large Magellanic Cloud. Interactions with nearby galaxies are thought to have influenced this star formation.

Photograph: NASA, ESA, A. Aloisi (STScI/ESA), and The Hubble Heritage (STScI/AURA)-ESA/Hubble Collaboration

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