Tim Souster was a British composer and writer on music, best known for his electronic music output.
Education
Born Timothy Andrew James Souster in Bletchley, Buckinghamshire (Jack 1994), Souster was educated at Bedford Modern School (from 1952 through 1961) (Anon 2005) and, Oxford (from 1961 through 1964). His teachers included Bernard Rose, Sir David Lumsden and Egon Wellesz. In 1964, he attended summer courses at Darmstadt taught by Karlheinz Stockhausen, and took composition lessons with Richard Rodney Bennett the following year (Griffiths 2001.
Anon 2005).
Before the end of 1965, Souster was a producer with the British Broadcasting Corporation Third Programme, and put on many performances of contemporary music by composers such as Boulez, Berio, Barraqué, Cardew, Feldman, Henze and Stockhausen (Griffiths 2001.
Jack 1994) After leaving the British Broadcasting Corporation in 1967, he began to devote more time to composing and songwriting (Jack 1994).
Career
Education Foray into electronic music In the late 1960s Souster began experimenting with electronics. His first acknowledged composition involving electronic techniques was Titus Groan Music (1969) for wind quintet, ring modulator, amplifiers and tape. In August of the same year he moved to King"s College, Cambridge and formed a live-electronic group with Roger Smalley, Andrew Powell and Robin Thompson called Intermodulation (Griffiths 2001).
As well as compositions by Souster and Smalley, the group performed contemporary music by Cardew, Riley, Rzewski, Stockhausen and Wolff(Anon 2005).
Later years In 1971, Souster became a teaching assistant to Stockhausen in Cologne, and in 1973 he moved to Berlin where he remained for two years. In 1975 Souster returned to England to take up a research fellowship at Keele University (Anon 2005).
He remained in England for the rest of his life, except for a six-month stint in California in 1978 (Griffiths 2001. Anon 2005). He died after a brief, sudden illness on 1 March 1994 (Jack 1994).