John Arthur Casken is an English composer.
Casken was born in Barnsley, West Riding of Yorkshire, England. While at Barnsley Grammar School in the 1960s his music teacher played a recording of Berg's Violin Concerto, which had a lasting influence.
He studied composition at the University of Birmingham with John Joubert and Peter Dickinson. He attended the Warsaw Academy of Music between 1971 and 1972, where he studied with Andrzej Dobrowolski but also met and became friends with Witold Lutosławski. He has lectured at the universities of Birmingham and Durham, and between 1992 and 2008 he was Professor of Music at the University of Manchester. Casken's students include Michael Alcorn, David Jennings and James MacMillan.
Casken lives in Northumberland. He has acknowledged the landscape as a significant influence on his work. Works such as the orchestral Orion Over Farne, the unaccompanied choral work To Fields We Do Not Know, the orchestral song-cycle Still Mine, the ensemble piece Winter Reels and the choral Uncertain Sea have all drawn inspiration from Northumberland.