British composer and performer Cornelius Cardew (1936-1981) emerged from the same generation as pianist David Tudor and composer Karlheinz Stockhausen, a loosely allied movement whose activities and theories affected how many people could and would relate to music. As a performer in the early ‘60s, Cardew introduced the music of American avant-gardists like John Cage and Morton Feldman to the U.K. music community. As a composer, he was one of the pioneers of graphic notation (the use of unconventional symbols and text as a composition’s score). Cardew was also one of the performers blurring the line between improvisational approaches in the jazz and classical spheres, along with fellow travelers Lou Gare and Keith Rowe (all of which contributed to the Brit improv ensemble AMM). Later in his career, Cardew composed with the aim of combining folk and concert music with Marxist politics. His fiercely inventive spirit made a notable and continuing impact on the avant-garde sphere in the U.K. and beyond, as a post-punk band such as Sonic Youth would record a version of Cardew’s “Treatise.”