Profiles

Biography:

Born on the 25th December 1962 in Ashby-de-la-Zouch, England. I studied Composition at Huddersfield Polytechnic, King's College London, The Royal College of Music and Birmingham Conservatoire with Richard Steinitz, Jeremy Dale Roberts, Edwin Roxburgh and Lamberto Coccioli. After winning the Yorkshire Arts Young Composers' Competition with The Dreams of Fallen Gods, Sad Vales & Streams in 1983 I was active as a composer until 1992 when my writing ceased for over a decade through ill health. I live in Leicestershire and work as a full-time lecturer in music.

I am building a new catalogue of works as well as revising old manuscripts and reworking fragments of works written between 1983 & 1992. I recently completed postcards from home (seeking shelter in darkness & rain; Johnson's bridge; Autumn wraith) for SCAW (Sarah Watts, bass clarinet and Antony Clare, piano) and gallery of solitude 1 for alto flute and piano.

Cloud Walking (2005) for chamber ensemble was shortlisted by the spnm in 2005 which was the spur to start composing in earnest with the production of four scores that year. In 2006 I was chosen by the spnm to write Lamia for 24 solo voices for the BBC Singers, which was not only a great honour but would rekindle my relationship with the choir which began with Amours (1987) and For No Good Reason (1989) both for 16 solo voices. Corona for amplified harpsichord was written for Jane Chapman and completed in January 2006. The work was premiered on Tuesday 13th March, 2007, at Wapping Power Station, London, as part of the spnm’s Solo Spotlights series and the PRS Foundation.

2006 saw the completion of but the sky and the ocean for soprano, alto flute, bass clarinet, percussion and viola and Solar, Stellar, Lunar for piano, a project started in the summer of 2004. String Quartet No. 3 moon peers through dark veils was completed as was Plume for amplified harpsichord, written for Jane Chapman, in December 2006.

with angels come the light for ensemble was completed in January, 2007 and Nimbus (fragment) for violin and piano, in February. Pastel's Song for piano was written for Elena Riu in June 2007 and is published by Boosey & Hawkes as part of Elena Riu's R&B Collection. sun flames the evening sky for soprano saxophone was started in September and five fragments for orchestra was started in October completed on 17th January, 2008. four pictures of autumn (1984), between clouds of intensity (1984) and from clouds to horizons (1985) are currently under revision.

and on the breeze a song for Kuljit Bhamra (tabla/percussion), Kathryn Tickell (Nothumbrian small pipes), Jonathan Mayer (sitar), Marie Fielding (fiddle) and Julian Sutton (melodeon) was completed in March 2008 for the Folk from Here project devised by the spnm. It was premiered on 7th May at York University and then 8th May, Royal Northern College of Music; 4th June, Spitalfields Festival; 10th July, Cheltenham Festival.