Jonathan Crossley

Jonathan Crossley is a British/South African guitarist, improviser, composer and practice-based researcher whose work moves between experimental jazz, contemporary composition, post-rock, electroacoustic improvisation and digitally extended guitar practice. His music centres on the space between composition and improvisation, with technology functioning as part of the musical interaction rather than simply as an effect. Guitar Moderne described Crossley as “the poster boy for modern guitar,” while All About Jazz called “Bounce”, from Inhale, “a whopper, worthy of the price of admission itself,” comparing its impact to “The Bad Plus with guitars.”

PERFORMANCE

Crossley’s live practice combines extended guitar, synthesis, sampling, real-time processing and improvisation, frequently bringing together musicians from contrasting musical backgrounds. Long-standing collaborators include South African bassist Carlo Mombelli and drummer Jonathan Sweetman, alongside more recent work with David Kollar, Lukas Ligeti, Arve Henriksen, Nick Branton, Cameron Harris and Miles Warrington.

Inhale was premiered at Liverpool’s Tung Auditorium in 2022, followed by performances in South Africa and appearances at the International Society for Contemporary Music’s World New Music Days in Johannesburg and Cape Town. A 2024 artistic residency at the University of Liverpool with Kollar and Ligeti subsequently developed into the music released as Solace.

RECORDINGS

Crossley’s recorded work has moved through classical guitar, jazz-rock, electronic music and hyper-instrument practice towards increasingly open forms of collaborative improvisation. The son0_morph series explored different configurations of solo, duo and ensemble improvisation, while Inhale brought together math-rock, post-rock, jazz, strings and electronics. This was followed by the live-oriented Bree Street.

More recent albums have concentrated on collaborator-responsive improvisation. Avallus, with Nick Branton, places acoustic winds against digitally expanded guitar, while Coalescence, with Cameron Harris and Miles Warrington, developed from a live performance in Pretoria.

Released by 7D Media in 2026, Solace brings Crossley together with David Kollar and Lukas Ligeti across nine improvised pieces, with Arve Henriksen joining the title track on trumpet and synthesisers. The album moves between ambient space, complex rhythmic interaction, electronics and freely improvised ensemble playing.

RESEARCH

Crossley’s academic research grows directly from his creative practice. He is a Lecturer in Music Technology at the University of Liverpool, where his work spans improvisation, creative technology, musical interfaces, pedagogy and ethnomusicology.

His doctoral research developed the Cyber-Guitar, examining technologically enabled performance and gestural control. Subsequent writing includes work on iterative musical collaboration and on collaboration, creativity and care in electronic-music pedagogy. Alongside these publications, albums including Avallus, Coalescence and Solace operate as practice-based research into technologically mediated improvisation: how musicians listen and respond to one another, how prepared electronic materials shape agency, and how technological systems themselves can become participants within an improvised ensemble.

A second strand of research examines traditional African instruments and Christian congregational music, particularly the historical and contemporary exclusion of traditional instruments from worship practices. The project developed from the 2022 album Crown Him: Hymns from Around the World and investigates relationships between musical practice, cultural identity, colonial inheritance, globalisation and contemporary worship. More about the project can be found at Traditional African Instruments and Christian Congregational Music.

Crossley is also co-director, with Dr Jenn Kirby, of the University of Liverpool’s Music, Technology and Interaction (MTI) research centre, an interdisciplinary centre for research into music, technology, embodiment and creative interaction. Its activities include performances, installations, software, collaborative research and events such as the 2026 Embodied Research Methods in Music & Sound study day with the RMA Practice Research Study Group.