Introduction

I am a retired Professor of Music, composer and musicologist whose work has consistently moved between artistic practice, research and institutional innovation. Across my career I have worked at the intersection of composition, digital technology and interdisciplinary inquiry, with a particular interest in systems, listening and the structures that shape creative thought.

My academic career began in Performing Arts: Music at what was then Leicester Polytechnic. In 1997 I founded Music, Technology and Innovation at De Montfort University, followed in 2005 by the Institute of Creative Technologies. In 2013 I established Creative Computing at Bath Spa University and in 2018 did the same at the University of Leicester. In 2022 I co-founded the Institute for Digital Culture at Leicester before retiring in 2024. In 2025 I became Visiting Research Professor of Music at the University of Leeds, returning to a School of Music after twenty years.

Alongside this institutional work, composition has remained central to my identity. I began composing in my early teens, initially influenced by the avant-garde music and literature I was discovering at the time. In the 1980s and 1990s my work became associated with post-minimalism and conceptual experimentation, shaped by a long-standing fascination with pattern, structure and constraint. My compositions have been widely performed and broadcast, and my writing has explored topics ranging from music and literature to computer science and digital culture.

In 2009, Ménière's Disease caused severe hearing loss, tinnitus and diplacusis. In 2018, I was diagnosed autistic. These experiences reshaped my understanding of listening, perception and system, and have significantly informed my recent artistic and scholarly work. They have also led me to become increasingly active as a disability advocate and consultant, particularly in relation to hearing difference and neurodivergent experience.

I was born in 1957 in Chichester, UK. As a child I developed enduring interests in wildlife, music and, later, computers. From the age of eleven I began composing. My subsequent career has been a sustained exploration of these long-standing fascinations, grounded in a commitment to interdisciplinary thinking and the creative possibilities of divergent thought.

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