Writings About Me

Books

Malte Burba & Paul Hübner, Modern Times for Brass. Experimentelle Spieltechniken auf Blasinstrumenten. Featuring discussion of What then renders these forces visible is a strange smile. Breitopf & Härtel, BV 445, 2019.

Nicholas Donin, ‘Finding the body in 20th-century musical notation: On gestures, tablatures, and performing without instruments’, in: Music/Dance: Sound and Motion in Contemporary Discourse and Practice, Gianmario Borio, Patrizia Veroli, Gianfranco Vinay (eds.),  Farnham: Ashgate, 2017. Featuring discussion of The Crutch of Memory.

Tim Rutherford-Johnson, After the Fall: Music Since 1989. With discussions of numerous works, including The Crutch of Memory, A painter of figures in rooms, metallic dust, and What then renders these forces visible is a strange smile. University of California Press, 2017.

Jennie Gottschalk, Experimental Music Since 1970. Featuring discussions of Being itself a catastrophe, the diagram must not create a catastropheThe Crutch of Memory, Second String Quartet, A painter of figures in rooms, as well as references to the Noise in and as Music bookBloomsbury, 2016.

Michael Edgerton, The 21st Century Voice, 2nd ed. Featuring discussion of A painter of figures in rooms. Scarecrow Press, 2014.

Irvine Arditti and Robert HP Platz, The Techniques of Violin Playing/Die Spieltechnik der Violinei. Featuring discussion of The Crutch of Memory and Second String Quartet. Bärenreiter, 2013.

Articles/Journals/Magazines

Samuel Wilson, New Music and the Crises of Materiality: Sounding Bodies and Objects in Late Modernity, Routledge, July 2021. Discussing The Crutch of Memory.

Luc Döbereiner, “Materiality, Contingency and Emergence of Compositional Material,” Contemporary Music Review, December 10, 2020. Discussing String Quartet (2002).

Einar Torfi Einarsson, ‘Desiring-Machines: In between Difference and Repetition, Performer and Conductor, Cyclones and Physicality, Structure and Notation,’ Perspectives of New Music Vol. 53, No. 1 (Winter 2015), pp. 5-30. Features discussion of And the scream, Bacon’s scream, is the operation through which the entire body escapes through the mouth

Diego Castro Magaš, ‘Deleuze’s Fold in the Performing Practice of Aaron Cassidy’s The Pleats of Matter’, The Dark Precursor: Deleuze and Artistic Research, Paulo de Assis and Paolo Giudic, eds. Leuven University Press, 2017.

Matthew Sergeant, “Introducing ‘Re-coupling’: The Compositional Appropriation of Instrumental Physicality to disrupt Pattern-based Musical Materials,” Athens Journal of Humanities & Arts – Volume 1, Issue 3, pp. 239-252, July 2014.

Masing, Elo. “Mapping or choreographing?: Redefning musical notation.” Opticon 1826, no. 16, 2014. Features discussion of The Crutch of Memory.

Karen Loew, ‘Squiggles are the new quarter notes: why music looks different now’, The Atlantic. Oct 2013.

Stuart Duncan, “Re-complexifying the Function(s) of Notation in the Music of Brian Ferneyhough and the ‘New Complexity’.” Featuring discussion of The Crutch of MemoryPerspectives of New Music Vol. 48, 2010, p. 136-172.

Evan Johnson, “Aaron Cassidy.”  Grove Dictionary of Music Online. www.oxfordmusiconline.com  (added October 2009)

Christopher Redgate, “Re-inventing the oboe.” Featuring discussion of “the green is or”. Contemporary Music Review. (Vol 26, Issue 2, April 2007. pp. 179-188.)

Mieko Kanno, “Prescriptive notation: Limits and challenges.” Featuring discussion of The Crutch of Memory. Contemporary Music Review. (Vol 26, Issue 2, April 2007. pp. 231 – 254.)

Web profiles

Simon Cummings, “Giving Voice to the Indescribable:  Aaron Cassidy – The Crutch of Memory.” 5against4.com, May 2012.

Jennie Gottschalk, “transference (4) – Aaron Cassidy,” sound expanse. June 2011.

Tim Rutherford-Johnson, “A Journey to Aaron Cassidy’s Second String Quartet,” New Music Box (web magazine of the American Music Center) composer profile. February 2011.

Liner Notes/Booklet Essays

Evan Johnson, A Way of Making Ghosts, Kairos 0015073KAI, December 1, 2022. 

Evan Johnson, The Crutch of Memory, NEOS 11201, January 30, 2012.

Doctoral Dissertations/Theses about my work

(The following are PhD & DMA theses that discuss my work, either in their entirety or in full chapter-long case studies. Additional PhD thesis/dissertation citations are included among the citations listed via Google Scholar.)

Kathryn Schulmeister, University of California San Diego (UCSD), “Learning Strategies for Contemporary Music: Rhythmic Translation, Choreography, and Instrumental Reconception.” September 2022

Ralph Lewis, University of Illinois, “Resilient Structures and Indeterminate Localities in Aaron Cassidy’s Second String Quartet.” May 2021.

Carl Rosman, University of Huddersfield, “Emergent behaviours in five long-term collaborations for clarinet.” Summer 2021.

Samuel Fibich Yulsman, Columbia University, “Free Jazz Simulations and Political Despair in Aaron Cassidy’s The wreck of former boundaries.” April 2021.

Kevin Fairbairn, Universiteit Leiden, in partnership with Koninklijk Conservatorium/Instituut voor Sonologie, “Poiesis and the Performance Practice of Physically Polyphonic Notations.” February 2020. 

Liam James Hockley, University of British Columbia “Performing Complexity: Theorizing Performer Agency in Complexist Music,” 2018. 

Diego Castro Magas, University of Huddersfield, “Body, mimesis and image: a gesture based approach to interpretation in contemporary guitar performing practice.” November 2016.

Daryl Buckley, Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology, “From body schema to score: creating spatial grammars in contemporary electric guitar practice.” August 2015.