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Cornelius Cardew

Cornelius Cardew (May 7, 1936December 13, 1981) born in Winchcombe, Gloucester, was an English avant-garde composer, and founder (with Howard Skempton and Michael Parsons) of the Scratch Orchestra, an experimental performing ensemble. He is notable for Treatise, a graphic score purely psychologically interpreted.

From 1958 to 1960 was an assistant to Karlheinz Stockhausen, working on Stockhausen's Carré. He was, along with John Tilbury, one of the best known performers of cello and piano pieces by Stockhausen, John Cage, Morton Feldman, Christian Wolff, and other experimental music. Cardew also perfomed with free improvisation group AMM.

He is the author of Stockhausen Serves Imperialism (1974), written after abandoning avante-garde music for a populist though post-romantic tonal style. Espousing Maoism, Cardew was active in various causes in the fringe of English politics. He was a co-founder of the Revolutionary Communist Party of Great Britain (Marxist-Leninist).

Cardew died the victim of a hit-and-run car accident in London.

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