Konsztrukting Soundz EVENING TWENTY-EIGHT, an evening of improvised and experimental electro-acoustic music.

Casserley, Corringham, Sjöström, Van Schouwburg Quartet 2026 Lawrence Casserley’s 85th Birthday Tourette, Concert #3

An evening of free improvisation and electroacoustic exploration featuring five distinctive voices from the international improvised music scene, centred around the live signal processing of Lawrence Casserley.

Programme
SET #1 – Lawrence Casserley + Jean-Michel Van Schouwburg + Viv Corringham
SET #2 – Lawrence Casserley + Harri Sjöström
SET #3 – Lawrence Casserley + Lev Dudas
SET #4 – Lawrence Casserley + Jean-Michel Van Schouwburg + Viv Corringham + Harri Sjöström


ARTIST INFORMATION

LAWRENCE CASSERLEY (digital signal processing)
Lawrence Casserley (born Essex, England, 1941) has devoted his career to the creation and promotion of live performance electronic music in a wide variety of ways for more than fifty years. In 1967 he became one of the first students of electronic music on the new course at the Royal College of Music, London, taught by Tristram Cary. His career continued at the Royal College of Music, where he became Professor-in-Charge of Studios and Adviser for Electroacoustic Music.
Since taking early retirement from the RCM in 1995 he has worked with many of the leading improvisers, particularly Evan Parker, his Electracoustic Ensemble and Electroacoustic Quartets. While he focuses primarily on the real-time transformation of other musicians’ sounds, he also uses voice, percussion, home-made instruments and found objects as separate sound sources or inputs for his self-designed Signal Processing Instrument. Casserley’s instrumental approach to live computer sound processing is the hallmark of his work, which is documented on more than forty releases; he has performed and given workshops throughout Europe and in North and South America, Asia and Japan. He is a performing member of Oxford Improvisers.

During 2026 Lawrence has been celebrating his 85th birthday by organising a series of concerts in Oxford and elsewhere, inviting many of his international colleagues to take part. This tour is part of that series.

"...the certainty is that Lawrence Casserley can be more innovative and creative than many of the ringleaders of the young generation of 'laptoppers'." Rui Eduardo Paes

Website: https://www.lcasserley.co.uk/

VIV CORRINGHAM (vocals)
Since the late 1970s Viv Corringham has been singing a wide range of music: free improvisation, Greek rembetika, Turkish folk and spontaneously created songs that often include field recordings. Walking has long been an essential part of her work. She leads group soundwalks and listening workshops based on her studying and working with Pauline Oliveros. On solo walks she improvises with environmental sounds, and in her ongoing series Shadow-walks she responds to the memory of walks that individuals chose as special for them.

A good audio introduction to Viv’s work can be found here: https://www.thewire.co.uk/audio/tracks/an-audio-introduction-to-viv-corringham
“Whilst she does all the experimental extended technique stuff, she also has a voice trained in folk and world music, has a fantastic sense of melody and can be very moving. [Her music] is reassuringly bonkers.”

Website: https://www.vivcorringham.org/

HARRI SJÖSTRÖM (saxophones)
Harri Sjöström Born in Turku, Finland, and based in Berlin since 1985, Harri Sjöström is a soprano and sopranino saxophonist, improviser, composer, and artistic director whose work has contributed to the development of European contemporary improvised music for more than four decades. After studying music and fine arts in San Francisco during the 1970s, he returned to Europe in 1978 and established himself as a freelance musician and artistic initiator. Since then, he has collaborated with many leading figures in contemporary improvised music, including a.o, Derek Bailey, Lawrence Casserley, Alexander von Schlippenbach, Paul Lovens, John Russell, Paul Rutherford, Cecil Taylor and Teppo Hauta-aho. Throughout his career, Sjöström has founded or co-founded numerous ensembles and projects, including Quintet Moderne, MOVE, ECIO (European Composers Improvisers Orchestra Pool), City Of Pyramids, The Player Is, Motström, Flight Mode, Mothers Delight, and others. Since 2016, he has been the founder and Artistic Director of the SoundScapes Festival, an international platform dedicated to contemporary improvised music.
“Harri Sjöström on soprano and sopranino saxophones, was able to soar away, sometimes by adding extra effects, like a trumpet mute stuffed into the bottom of the instrument.”

Website: https://www.harrisjostrom.com/

JEAN-MICHEL VON SCHOUWBURG (voice, vocals)
Jean-Michel Van Schouwburg is a very special self-taught vocalist from Brussels. Jean-Michel has developed vocal improvisation and voice extended techniques from low throat singing to high falsetto, overtones and yodels, mouth noises etc. He has perfomed in London, Lille, Slovakia, Liège and Brussels, as well as many other venues, with many muscicians. Interested in telepathic interplay and adapting his sounds with different partners/ groupings. He has worked frequently with Lawrence since 2003 in duo, trio and larger groups. They have issued two duo CDS in 2011 and 2024, as well as the Sverdrup Balance trio with Yoko Miura. These are among his many and varied collaborations. He appeared in Peter Strickland’s film “Berberian Sound Studio”.

“Van Schouwburg’s pharynx and oral cavity whistles, gurgles, retches and pauses appear alternately animal, human, mechanical or environmental. During the course of a single improv his glottis can approximate, Donald Duck-like quacks, comb-and-tissue paper strains, the soundtrack to constipation, a small child’s whimpers, unlimited yawning and garbled nonsense syllables.”

Website: https://orynx-improvandsounds.blogspot.com/

LEV DUDAS (electric guitar, electronics, effects)
Born in Bačka Topola (former Yugoslavia, now Serbia), Lev explores electro-acoustic and free improvised music through the electric guitar and effects. Influenced early on by rock and progressive music, and later by Schoenberg, Xenakis and related sound worlds, he focuses on instrumental and sonic combinations, ambient noise and texture in search of a personal sonic signature. Active on the London, Chelmsford and Southend scenes since 2019, he has performed with Kate Carr, Phil Durrant, John Bisset, Tasos Stamou and others.

Website: https://noewacreativemusic.co.uk/about-lev-dudas/