Michael Edward Parsons (born 12 December 1938) is a British composer. Since the 1960s, when he met

Cornelius Cardew Cornelius Cardew (7 May 193613 December 1981) was an English experimental music composer, and founder (with Howard Skempton and Michael Parsons) of the Scratch Orchestra, an experimental performing ensemble. He later rejected experimental music, ...

and helped found the

Scratch Orchestra The Scratch Orchestra was an experimental musical ensemble founded in the spring of 1969 by Cornelius Cardew, Michael Parsons and Howard Skempton. In the draft constitution published in the ''Musical Times'' of June 1969, Cardew defines a scrat ...

, Parsons has been strongly associated with the English school of experimental music. He was born in

Bolton Bolton (, locally ) is a large town in Greater Manchester in North West England, formerly a part of Lancashire. A former mill town, Bolton has been a production centre for textiles since Flemish weavers settled in the area in the 14th ...

and studied at St John's College, Oxford before taking up composition lessons under

Peter Racine Fricker Peter Racine Fricker (5 September 19201 February 1990) was an English composer, among the first to establish his career entirely after the Second World War. He lived in the US for the last thirty years of his life. Fricker wrote over 160 works in ...

at the

Royal College of Music The Royal College of Music is a conservatoire established by royal charter in 1882, located in South Kensington, London, UK. It offers training from the undergraduate to the doctoral level in all aspects of Western Music including performanc ...

London London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...

in 1961. In the 1960s he met Cornelius Cardew; Parsons attended Cardew's experimental music classes at

Morley College Morley College is a specialist adult education and further education college in London, England. The college has three main campuses, one in Waterloo on the South Bank, and two in West London namely in North Kensington and in Chelsea, the la ...

since 1968. In 1969 Cardew, Parsons and fellow composer Howard Skempton founded the

, an experimental free ensemble devoted to performing contemporary music. The Orchestra broke up in early 1970s, partly as a result of the politization led by Cardew. Parsons was among the Orchestra members who refused to be associated with the Maoist politics Cardew was propagating, and left. In 1970 Parsons started working as visiting lecturer in the Fine Art department of the

Portsmouth Polytechnic The University of Portsmouth is a public university in Portsmouth, England. It is one of only four universities in the South East England, South East of England rated as Gold in the Government's Teaching Excellence Framework. With approximately 28 ...

and in the

Slade School of Art The UCL Slade School of Fine Art (informally The Slade) is the art school of University College London (UCL) and is based in London, England. It has been ranked as the UK's top art and design educational institution. The school is organised as ...

University College London , mottoeng = Let all come who by merit deserve the most reward , established = , type = Public research university , endowment = £143 million (2020) , budget = ...

. In 1974 he and Skempton formed a duo to perform their own works. In 1996–97 Parsons was a bi-fellow at Churchill College, Cambridge. During this time he organised concerts at

Kettle's Yard Kettle's Yard is an art gallery and house in Cambridge, England. The director of the art gallery is Andrew Nairne. Both the house and gallery reopened in February 2018 after an expansion of the facilities. Kettle's Yard galleries, shop and caf ...

Cambridge Cambridge ( ) is a College town, university city and the county town in Cambridgeshire, England. It is located on the River Cam approximately north of London. As of the 2021 United Kingdom census, the population of Cambridge was 145,700. Cam ...

. Since the early 1960s Parsons has also been active as a writer on music; his writings include a number of important articles on contemporary English composers. Parsons' music is influenced by

Anton Webern Anton Friedrich Wilhelm von Webern (3 December 188315 September 1945), better known as Anton Webern (), was an Austrian composer and conductor whose music was among the most radical of its milieu in its sheer concision, even aphorism, and stead ...

, composers of the so-called New York school ( John Cage,

Morton Feldman Morton Feldman (January 12, 1926 – September 3, 1987) was an American composer. A major figure in 20th-century classical music, Feldman was a pioneer of indeterminate music, a development associated with the experimental New York School ...

and Christian Wolff), various English composers he met through Cardew and the Scratch Orchestra, and, since the Portsmouth years, " Systems" artists such as Malcolm Hughes and

Jeffrey Steele Jeffrey LeVasseur (born August 27, 1961), known as Jeffrey Steele, is an American country music singer and songwriter. Along with recording his own material, Steele has become a prolific Nashville songwriter, having co-written more than 60 hit ...

Publications

* Parsons, Michael (1976): "Systems in Art and Music", ''The Musical Times'', Vol. 117, No. 1604 (Oct. 1976), pp. 815–1

accessed 16 February 2010
Jems: Journal of Experimental Music Studies
includes articles on Howard Skempton by Michael Parsons, as well as other materials on English experimental composers.

References

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Parsons, Michael 1938 births Living people English classical composers English experimental musicians 20th-century classical composers People from Bolton Academics of the Slade School of Fine Art English male classical composers 20th-century English composers 21st-century English composers 20th-century British male musicians 21st-century British male musicians