Hugh Wood (1932-) was born in Parbold, Lancashire. Spending much of his time composing from an early age, he went on to study history at New College, Oxford. During his time at university he often wrote music for theatre. In 1954, he moved to London to study composition privately with various different composer-teachers. In the same period, he started teaching music in schools and lectured at the Royal Academy of Music. His music takes influence from Schoenberg - it uses dense atonal counterpoint, either directly using the 12 tone serialist technique, or some varient of it. His music can take a wide range of themes: violent, lyrical, or jazz-like, but they all share a common theme of precise and judicious thematic development and logic, inspired by Bach, who was once described as his "earliest enthusiasm".