Studied music at Nottingham University under Ivor Keys and Arnold Whittall.

Completed M Phil in Music Composition in 1971 working with Henri Pousseur, Roger Smalley, Pierre Marietan, Michel Decoust, and Cornelius Cardew. 

Ph.D at the University of York under Nicola Lefanu: Doctoral thesis A Changing Role for the Composer in Society completed in April 2002. Now published as a book by Peter Lang, Bern Switzerland 2005.

Director of Sound Studio at Birmingham Arts Laboratory 1970-75

Director of Electronic Sound Studio at Spectro Arts Workshop, Newcastle on Tyne 1975-79; Music and Dance Co-ordinator at the Arnolfini Gallery, Bristol 1979-89; Concert Director at Bath Spa University College and the University of Bath in 1989-2000; Founded the award-winning concert programme Rainbow over Bath.

1994: Bath International Festival as Contemporary Music Programme Director.

1996-2000 Set up the European musical exchange programme “Rainbow across Europe” funded by the Kaleidoscope fund of the European Union and Arts Council A4E Lottery, described by Gillian Perkins as a ground-breaking initiative which took “creative music making into European classrooms in several countries at once.”

Composer in Residence at the Corsham Festival June 2002.

Part-time lecturer in Arts Administration at Bath Spa University College 1992-2000,

Part-time lecturer in music for University of Bristol Lifelong Learning Programme, 2000-2004.

Senior Lecturer in Music, and Arts Management, Oxford Brookes University December 2004 to 2010. Successfully raised £¼ million from the EU Leonardo da Vinci programme to support the European Arts Management Programme, a 2-year pilot project starting in October 2006 in collaboration with universities and enterprise agencies in 9 European countries.

Chairman of the Severnside Composers Alliance 2011 to present.

My compositional works include experimental and environmental sound-scapes, music for solo piano, solo woodwind, choir, orchestra and chamber ensemble. In 1994 I was commissioned by the Diocese of Bath & Wells to write “Edgar the King”, a setting for choir and orchestra of poems from the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. I have written two operas and am currently working on a third. I have written many educational and community works including “Dream River: Great Wall”, a creative project for junior school children in collaboration with the UK Chinese Ensemble funded by Youth Music in 2002 & 2003. In 2012 my setting of Philip Larkin‘s poem “The North Ship” won first prize in the EPSS Jubilee Song Competition. As a result I was able to collaborate with Sarah Leonard in the creation of “Dark Seas” for soprano, clarinet and piano funded by Arts Council England.

Book publication: A Changing Role for the Composer in Society; A Study of the Historical Background and Current Methodologies of Creative Music-Making; Peter Lang, European Academic Publishers, Switzerland 2005