John Casken

John Casken (b. 1949) studied at the University of Birmingham with John Joubert and Peter Dickinson, after which he was awarded a Polish Government Scholarship in 1971 to study with Andrzej Dobrowolski; during this time he began a long association and friendship with Witold Lutoslawksi. Casken was a lecturer at the Universities of Birmingham and Durham and Professor of Music at Manchester.

Casken’s works range from chamber music to large-scale orchestral music, and from vocal and choral music to opera. The titles of his works reveal that he can be inspired both by literature and legend, and by landscape and painting. His first opera, Golem, was based on the Jewish legend. It brought Casken the First Britten Award for Composition in 1990 and a Virgin Classics recording with the original cast and Music Projects/London conducted by Richard Bernas, which went on to win the 1991 Gramophone Award in the Contemporary Category and was re-released on NMC. Casken’s second opera, God’s Liar (2001), based on Tolstoy’s novella Father Sergius, was recorded by Belgian Radio and subsequently broadcast in Belgium and by BBC Radio 3. 

A number of Casken’s works reflect aspects of the landscape and literature of the North of England, where he lives in Northumberland: Orion Over Farne (1984, for orchestra), To Fields We Do Not Know (1985), a Northumbrian Elegy for unaccompanied chorus, written for the BBC Singers, and the orchestral song-cycle Still Mine, written for Thomas Allen for the 1992 BBC Proms, and winner of the 1993 Prince Pierre de Monaco Prize for Musical Composition.

His friendship with the Northern Sinfonia has resulted in a number of works: Maharal Dreaming (1989), the Cello Concerto (1991), written for Heinrich Schiff, and Darting the Skiff (1993) for strings. In 1999, the orchestra gave the première of the orchestral version of Après un silence for violin and chamber orchestra, a gift to the orchestra in its 40th anniversary year. His latest collaboration with Northern Sinfonia is Farness – three poems of Carol Ann Duffy (2006) for soprano, solo viola and chamber orchestra.

John Casken has also had a long association with the Lindsay String Quartet, and as well as three string quartets written for them, he also composed Rest-ringing (2005) for string quartet and orchestra, commissioned by the Hallé Orchestra for the quartet in the year of their retirement.

Other notable works include the Violin Concerto, premièred at the 1995 Proms with Dmitri Sitkovetsky and the BBC Philharmonic conducted by Yan Pascal Tortelier; Casken’s first symphony – Symphony (Broken Consort) – which includes a gyspy ensemble within the orchestra, commissioned for the 2004 Proms; and a setting of the medieval poem The Dream of the Rood for The Hilliard Ensemble and Ensemble 10/10, conducted by Clark Rundell and premiered in Liverpool’s Metropolitan Cathedral in October 2008 as part of the European Capital of Culture celebrations.