Ep. 21: Kasper Cornish

*All podcasts formerly on SoundCloud have now been redirected to Anchor.* In this podcast, we'll be hearing from ex-ballet dancer, choreographer and composer Kasper Cornish, who enjoyed success as a professional dancer for many years. We'll hear about some of his career highlights and his passion for ballet and music (he considered being a professional musician before making the decision to become a dancer). But we'll be mainly focusing on Kasper's work in music composition, which he has concentrated more on since retiring from professional performing. Kasper talks lucidly about his creative and research methods when writing for dance as opposed to abstract music. And he explains some of the challenges when working with musicians in a class setting, as well as the invaluable opportunity a dance class presents for a composer to trial new material. Many thanks to Kasper for kindly taking the time out of his day to talk to me before teaching at The Place! Published on 7th February 2020; recorded at Sadler's Wells on 15th January 2020.  Kasper Cornish began his dance training at the age of 10 with Sara Phillips in 1984 and graduated from Central School of Ballet in 1993 after which he joined Ballet Wales, touring the UK in productions of The Swan and Cinderella. Performing work ranged from Ballet Dancer to Wrestler for the BAFTA award-winning Channel 4 series Faking It to creating the title role in The Snowman (Birmingham Repertory Theatre, West End and BBC film of the stage show). Other credits include The Phantom of The Opera feature film and dancing the role of "Slavemaster" for the national tour of the stage show. He played the Prince of Transylvania in the National Theatre production of My Fair Lady at Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, was a founding member of Just Desert Dance Co. and as a freelance principal artist danced popular ballet pas de deux as far afield as Japan. He was principal ballet dancer at Glyndebourne in 1996 as well as understudy to Zoltan Solymosi and toured France and Switzerland in Maurice Bejart's Bolero with Sylvie Guillem. He has taught Classical Ballet and Pas de Deux since 1997 for performing arts colleges, international summer schools, dance companies and open classes. Choreographic work includes The Classical Brits, Comedy Shuffle (BBC3), "Canvas Bag" for Tim Minchin, The Terence Higgins Trust, Nickleodeon TV, movement for actors in feature films and "Degas – A Passion for Perfection" (Exhibition on Screen). Kasper's music compositions include six ballet class albums, music for dance, a brass quintet, clarinet sonata, Oratorio for Baritone - choir & string orchestra, Christmas carols, string quartet, song cycles and works for solo piano. www.kaspercornish.bandcamp.com