Earle Brown (Lunenburg, Massachusetts, December 26, 1926 Rye, New York, July 2, 2002) was an American composer. Among his many innovations, he near- singlehandedly re-invigorated classical music with improvisation by establishing his own formal and notational systems. He did this at a time when his peer John Cage was actively dismissing improvisation as the regurgitation of one's habits, a position incompatible with Cage's Zen leanings. Brown was the creator of open form, a style of musical construction that has influenced many waves of composers since notably the downtown New York scene of the 1980s (see John Zorn) and generations of younger composers who seek to discover their own way through the axis of choice vs. chance vs. determinacy and the way notation and form play a role in these balances.