I was always interested in music and started studying piano and recorder at a young age. I attended the RCM studying with Ross Winters (recorder), Robert Sutherland (piano and accompaniment), and Philip Cannon (composition and theory). This was followed by periods of private study with Simon Bainbridge, Michael Finnissy, and James Dillon, before taking an MA in Composition at the University of Huddersfield under the supervision of Margaret Lucy Wilkins. I also attended the Scottish Chamber Orchestra’s composers’ course on the island of Hoy with Sir Peter Maxwell Davies and Judith Weir.

I continued to work on music pedagogy and composition through my teaching activities during the 1990s and 2000s, working with university students, schools and amateur musicians. Teaching for the Solihull Music Service, and with both the Open Studies Programme and the School of Education at the University of Warwick, becoming a Senior Teaching Fellow in 2002, I continued to expand this area of my practice. I also began to teach at the University of Bath. In 2001, I was selected for the Young Composers Forum created by Ensemble Aleph, giving the opportunity of creating new works and gaining performances in France and the rest of Europe.

My professional recordings began with an album of Lieder by Wolfgang Rihm with Clare Lesser (soprano) in 2003 for Métier/Divine Art. Subsequently, I have recorded music by Michael Finnissy, with Clare Lesser and Carl Rosman (clarinets) and a mixed album of works by Heinz Holliger, Wolfgang Rihm, Michael Finnissy and myself, again with Clare Lesser. During our duo’s career we have commissioned and premiered new works by Michael Finnissy, Hans-Joachim Hespos, Mark R. Taylor, myself, and many others.

After moving to Dubai in 2007, I taught at the American Universities of Dubai and Sharjah before moving to teach piano and composition at New York University – Abu Dhabi and performed widely at the university and throughout the UAE.

Now, I am back in Dorset, working on a new trio and settings of Ingeborg Bachmann.