Michael Edward Parsons (born 12 December 1938) is a
British composer. Since the 1960s, when he met
Cornelius Cardew and helped found the
Scratch Orchestra, Parsons has been strongly associated with the English school of experimental music. He was born in
Bolton and studied at
St John's College, Oxford before taking up composition lessons under
Peter Racine Fricker at the
Royal College of Music in
London in 1961. In the 1960s he met Cornelius Cardew; Parsons attended Cardew's experimental music classes at
Morley College since 1968. In 1969 Cardew, Parsons and fellow composer
Howard Skempton founded the
Scratch Orchestra, an experimental free ensemble devoted to performing contemporary music. The Orchestra broke up in early 1970s, partly as a result of the politization led by Cardew. Parsons was among the Orchestra members who refused to be associated with the Maoist politics Cardew was propagating, and left. In 1970 Parsons started working as visiting lecturer in the Fine Art department of the
Portsmouth Polytechnic and in the
Slade School of Art,
University College London. In 1974 he and Skempton formed a duo to perform their own works. In 1996–1997 Parsons was a bi-fellow at Churchill College, Cambridge. During this time he organised concerts at
Kettle's Yard,
Cambridge. Since the early 1960s Parsons has also been active as a writer on music; his writings include a number of important articles on contemporary English composers.