Peter Cusack

Dear Arts Council Music Panel,

As an international improvising musician and Senior Lecturer in Sound Arts and Design at the University of Arts, London, your proposal to end the LMC's grant causes me huge concern. From it's monthly calandar (of all London improvised events), through educational workshops to the Annual International Festival the LMC promotes, encourages, showcases and informs about improvised and related musics in inumerable ways. The festivals particularly have not only given international musicians a voice in the UK but have allowed relationships between UK and foreign musicians to flourish. I have performed many times abroad through contacts originally made via the LMC. This cannot be done without subsidy. Without it the London's and the UK's improvised music would not have the strength or the very high international reputation that it currently enjoys.
As a lecturer I regularly send students to the LMC both as musicians and to participate in all aspects of LMC work. No other organisation provides such consistant training opportunities.
The LMC was the originator and is the driving force behind ResonancFM. The two work very closely in tandem with a symbiotic relationship that is unique in sonic culture. It is an incredibly productive combination. For the LMC to lose it's grant would be a savage, and unneccessary, blow, not just to London, but to the sonic arts community and its audience as a whole. It's lose would be felt worldwide.
Peter Cusack