Death of an English American polymath, 88

Family members have announced that the experimental composer, musicologist, writer and performer Peter Dickinson died this weekend after a lifetime of ceaseless curiosity.

A Juilliard graduate from Lytham St Annes, Dickinson was an authority on American music, from Ives and Cage to present-day composers. He was the first professor of music at Keele in 1974 and he went on to teach at Goldsmiths, in London.

He composed concertos for organ, piano and violin, as well as a vast amount of vocal music, much of it performed with his sister, Meriel Dickinson. He wrote two books about Lennox Berkeley and others on Billy Mayerl, Aaron Copland, John Cage, Lord Berners and Samuel Barber.