John Casken (born 1949) is an English composer, born in Barnsley, Yorkshire, England.Casken read music at the University of Birmingham, studying composition and contemporary music with John Joubert and Peter Dickinson. He then went on to study in Poland with Andrzej Dobrowolski on a Polish government scholarship at the Academy of Music in Warsaw, from 1971 to 1972. During this time he began to have regular consultations with Witold Lutosławski, with whom he formed a close association and friendship. Casken has since written articles on the music of Lutosławski, including the contribution of the chapter "The Visionary and Dramatic in the music of Lutosławski" to Zbigniew Skowron's Lutosławski Studies. Casken left Poland to return to Birmingham as a lecturer in 1973. After a Fellowship at Hu