December 2011

Christmas Cantata - Brighter than the Sun

March 2011

Short Story, Douai Abbey

November 2010

Rossetti Requiem, first performance, Newbury

July 2010

Concerto Cubico performed at South Hill Park

2009-2010

Speed Matters performed in Buckingham Festival, South Hill Park, and other venues

recently

briefly...

- read music at Oxford - trained at the London Opera Centre - pianist etc. in N.German opera company before joining the music staff of the Royal Opera House in London's Covent Garden - post-graduate study in composition at RCM - attended the Darmstadt school in 1976 when Ligeti was lecturing there - helped to develop the Royal Opera's growing outreach programme giving workshops and devising projects in which children created their own operas - since 2000 active in the town of Newbury where I have been described as an impressario - rather pleased to realise that composing is simply a way of making things happen - enjoy doing this as part of a community, combining professional and amateur skills in music for different occasions.
 

style

My music aims to be contemporary and entertaining. I don't adhere to dogma of language or style but see techniques used in different periods of musical history as being complementary: thus, tonality and atonality are part of a continuum. I avoid complexity for its own sake preferring lucid and often lyrical statements and try to create music that is accessible but challenging to players and audiences who aren't necessarily new music specialists. I admire music that is exquisitely crafted, but also love spontaneity...

Born near London, 1951 Studied under John Lambert at the Royal College of Music. Read music at Oxford. Spent two years in in the North German town of Flensburg where I came into contact with the new music of the 1970's. Attended Darmstadt cmposers' course & Epitaph performed there. Also, Gulbenkian composers' course for choreographers.

Ephialtes (Scottish Ballet Workshop)

Maxims, Hymn, Riddle (Spiral Dance Compnay)

Invention for Jonathan Burrows' Royal Ballet Workshop

study

performances

1983 Piano Quartet wins Humphrey Searle Memorial Competition at Pucell Room

1984 Mass for 4 Voices performed at the Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival; broadcast on Radio 3's '

Chamber Concerto performed by Lontano at Bath Festival

1989 Caedmon commissioned & performed by Garden Venture of the Royal Opera House

1990 The Button Moulder commissioned by the Royal Opera's Education Department
 

1984 onwards - education work in Northamptonshire; joins outreach team of Royal Opera's education department

1987 & 1988 education projects in Bromley
1989 schools project for National Trust at Claydon House in Buckinghamshire

1991 -1992 school opera project for British Museum in Suffolk - The Treasure and a Tale performed at Snape Maltings

1994 opera project on Egypt in Wandsworth & Greenford; performed at Bloomsbury Theatre: featured in Channel 4's education series Eureka!

1996 - 98 school projects in Basingstoke; project for Andover Museum on the Victorian workhouse performed in Cricklade Theatre: The Paupers' Revenge

1999 Christmas project for Smannell School: The News From The World

2000 Arts for Everyone project in Andover: The Triumph of Lugh

2001 Millennium Festuval Awards for All project in Andover: The Dream That Hath No Bottom given three performances in Vernham Dean and Cricklade Theatre

projects

and then...

1996 - 2000 String Quartets 2 & 3, Meditation on a Ruin,

Te Deum, Opening Chapters and Symphony for Orchestra, and some liturgical works for choir & organ

2004 commission for W11 Opera - All in the Mind
First performances December 11 and 12, Britten Theatre, Royal College of Music

2004 'du barocque...' for Newbury Baroque Players

2005 The Crucifixion - project for Farleigh School, Hampshire

2005 Concerto Cubico
2007 Trio Sonata
2008 Speed Matters
2009 Songs for a Florentine Apollo

2010 Music for 4 Bassoons

2010 Rossetti Requiem

2011 Short Story

2011 String Sonata

2011 Brighter than the Sun