Lawrence Casserley
“…the certainty is that Lawrence Casserley can be more innovative and creative than many of the ringleaders of the young generation of ‘laptoppers’.” Rui Eduardo Paes Lawrence Casserley (born Essex, England, 1941) has devoted his career to the creation and promotion of live performance electronic music in a wide variety of ways for more than fifty years. In 1967 he became one of the first students of electronic music on the new course at the Royal College of Music, London, taught by Tristram Cary. His career continued at the Royal College of Music, where he became Professor-in-Charge of Studios and Adviser for Electroacoustic Music. Since taking early retirement from the RCM in 1995 he has worked with many of the leading improvisers, particularly Evan Parker and his Electracoustic Ensemble. While he focuses primarily on the real-time transformation of other musicians’ sounds, he also uses voice, percussion, home-made instruments and found objects as separate sound sources or inputs for his self-designed Signal Processing Instrument. Casserley’s instrumental approach to live computer sound processing is the hallmark of his work, which is documented on more than forty releases; he has performed and given workshops throughout Europe and in North and South America, Asia and Japan. Current collaborations include Jean-Michel Van Schouwburg, Philipp Wachsmann, Trevor Taylor, Gianni Mimmo, Martin Mayes, Nicola Baroni, Martin Hackett, Pat Thomas, Dominic Lash, Jeffrey Morgan, Harri Sjöström, Yoko Miura, Mia Zabelka and Viv Corringham. He is a regular member of Oxford Improvisers. www.lcasserley.co.uk
Viv Corringham
Since the late 1970s Viv Corringham has been singing a wide range of music: free improvisation, Greek rembetika, Turkish folk and spontaneously created songs that often include field recordings. Walking has long been an essential part of her work. She leads group soundwalks and listening workshops based on her studying and working with Pauline Oliveros. On solo walks she improvises with environmental sounds, and in her ongoing series Shadow-walks she responds to the memory of walks that individuals chose as special for them. A good audio introduction to Viv’s work can be found here: https://www.thewire.co.uk/audio/tracks/an-audio-introduction-to-viv-corringham “Whilst she does all the experimental extended technique stuff, she also has a voice trained in folk and world music, has a fantastic sense of melody and can be very moving. [Her music] is reassuringly bonkers.”
Yoko Miura
Japanese pianist Yoko Muira visits Europe often and has performed with many European improvisers, including several well established trios with Lawrence and another musician. As she says it: “I think it’s like we’re travelling on parallel paths to a destination. We communicate with each other by feeling and instinct. Personally, I take in sounds not as musical notes or chords, just as energy or vibration. I put several tones into our musical field and watch the chemical reaction. It’d be a kind of adventure. I always try to open a window so that we can reach a new world.” http://yokomiura.main.jp/home/english.html