Jonathan Crossley

Jonathan Crossley is a South African composer, performer, and Lecturer in Music Technology currently based at the University of Liverpool where he leads courses in hardware hacking, hyper instruments, and free improvisation. He has a specialised interest in poly-genre musical cultures, creative practices, and mediative technologies. Using the guitar, he explores stylistic outings from classical to improvisation, jazz through electronic and developing instrumental and system innovations.

Early works include albums such as the acoustic album Dreams of Skilia (2001), the chamber jazz album My Friends and I (2004), the rock/funk albums Funk for the Shaolin Monk (2007) and Got Funk Will Travel (2009). Funk for the Shaolin Monk and Got Funk Will Travel toured extensively from 2007-2014 with performances in South Africa, Turkey, Spain, Belgium, Slovakia, and The Czech Republic.

The free-improvisatory album What if the Machines Spoke Back to You (2011) marked a shift away from lead sheet-based improvisation towards systems-enabled free improvisational practices. A range of albums and performances have explored these technologies such as The Settlement (2017) with Mpho Molikeng, Blipz (2018) with Reza Khota and Jonno Sweetman, Deep Spacer – 433 Eros (2020), 3 Cities (2015) with Lukas Ligeti and Sweetman and the four son0_morph albums released during 2021 with Carlo Mombelli, Sweetman, Kathleen Tagg and Cameron Harris.

He has relentlessly pursued innovation in research which led to the development of an extended guitar system or hyper-instrument, the Cyber-Guitar, which extended the capacities of the traditional electric guitar beyond the use of the hands, encompassing the joints of the upper body using a mechanical exoskeleton.