LAWRENCE CASSERLEY
Short Biography
Lawrence Casserley is one of Britain's leading performers of live electroacoustic music. Born in 1941, Casserley studied music in the USA and Britain before joining the staff of the Royal College of Music, London. Since he joined the new Electronic Music Course taught by Tristram Cary at the RCM in 1967 he has dedicated his professional career to live electroacoustic performance, as composer, conductor, percussionist and computer musician. He has composed more than 30 electroacoustic works, mostly live. Since the 70s he has worked extensively in multi-media and collaborative environments, including the ensembles 'Hydra' and 'Electroacoustic Cabaret', both of which he helped to found. Many of these activities have been undertaken in collaboration with flautist and composer Simon Desorgher.
As a conductor and electroacoustic performer he has been involved in many important events, ranging from UK premieres of works by Stockhausen and Halffter to live processing of the London Jazz Composers Orchestra. He is particularly noted for playing the motorbike in concert and on television in several countries. Improvisation has always played a significant part in his work and he sees live digital processing as an instrument in its own right. He has worked with many leading improvisers in Britain and abroad, including Evan Parker, Barry Guy, Paul Lytton, Melvyn Poore, Alan Tomlinson, Vanessa Mackness, Rainer Bürck, Agustí Fernandez and Joel Ryan. He is a member of the group HyperYak.
Since 1996 Casserley has worked on the development of a signal processing instrument specifically for improvised music.
In 1995 he took early retirement from the Royal College of Music to pursue his other activities. He is a Director of the Colourscape Music Festivals. His duo CD with Evan Parker was released by Touch in October, 1997. Further CDs for LEO Records, Sargasso, Maya Records and ECM have appeared, and others are in preparation.
3 September, 2001