Between 1953-57 he studied piano, cello and composition at the Royal Academy Of Music. As a child he was a chorister at Canterbury Cathedral School. Although Cornelius was to become a radically unorthodox educator, his own musical training was solidly conventional. His father Michael was a well-known potter his mother Mariel worked as a painter and teacher. Organist, Michael Chant, who worked alongside him in both musical and political contexts, remembers Cardew as at the same time liberating and a hard taskmaster, demanding that we too put our musical and human talents where our best sentiments lie.Ĭornelius Cardew was born in May, 1936. In time, Cardew would come to direct that alertness more explicitly towards political analysis. Another American composer, Alvin Curran, recalls Cardew's calmness, his fiendish knowledge of the avant garde and his crystalline constructs derived from it. His associates were led to think again about their own creative activity. He was acutely aware of what was actually involved in the processes of composing, performing and listening to music. Cardew had the capacity to cut through mystification and conceptual clutter. I keep coming back to the clarity and sharpness of focus of what he did, says Christian Wolff, a member of the New York School whose music first reached England largely through Cardew's efforts. Twenty years after that tragic event, the vitality and commitment to idealistic principles that characterised his life continue to take effect through the lives of those who shared his values. ![]() More recently, he joined the Revolutionary Communist Party of Great Britain. Cardew had been a member of AMM and The Scratch Orchestra. Cornelius Cardew - composer, player and educator, cultural catalyst and (from 1971) ardent communist - was struck by a car and killed by a hit-and-run driver who was never identified. On 13 December 1981, in Leyton, East London, the life of a galvanising activist in music and in politics was brutally terminated. ![]() Julian Cowley surveys the life of a true English revolutionary and hears testimony from friends and associates, including members of AMM, Michael Nyman, Christian Wolff, Frederic Rzewski, Alvin Curran and others. But his idealistic vision of a music that could shatter the division between art and the public continues to inspire his generation of musicians. ![]() Twenty years ago, British avant garde composer Cornelius Cardew's increasingly political activities were terminated by a hit-and-run driver. The Wire DECEMBER 2001 - by Julian Cowley Turn on javascript to use the drop-down menus.
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