A Short (Very) Biography



I started singing at the age of 11 in a good local church choir and began playing the flute. After finishing A levels I went on to study a degree, in Music, with the University of Wales at the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama. After completing the course I moved to North Yorkshire and worked for the local newspaper and then did an admin job in a prison for a year. In 1990 I studied a PGCE at the Didsbury School of Education in Manchester. I worked for six years in Shotton Hall Comprehensive, Peterlee and then spent eight years as the Head of Music at Risedale Sports and Community College in Catterick Garrison. Over the last few years my ICT teaching has increased to the point where I no longer teaching music. Better still, I'm now only teaching part time.

My conducting experience includes conducting two choral societies whilst studying for my degree, conducting a student orchestra in college, conducting the college School's Opera and performances of Humperdinck's Hansel and Gretel. I have been conducting at the Northallerton Music Centre full time since about 1997, although I have helped out since 1989. I started Conducting the Junior Wind Band and in 2001 moved to the Intermediate Wind Band.  In April 2007 I moved to conduct the Senior Orchestra.  I also conduct the Richmondshire Choral Society and you can find a link to their web page in my links section. I have sung with various Church choirs, The South West and Midlands Cathedral Singers, the Highnam National Opera, my college chamber choir, the National Youth Choir of Wales, the North Yorkshire Chorus, Richmondshire Choral Society and the Wensleydale Chorus. As well as still singing with the Wensleydale Chorus I also play flute in the Richmondshire Orchestra.

I've been composing music for as long as I have been playing the flute. I've written a lot of songs in various styles, a musical, wind band pieces, orchestral pieces and have finished a Requiem. I don't know which I prefer - writing rock pieces on the guitar or classical orchestral piece. I think it depends what kind of mood I'm in. I guess it's only recently that I've been taking it a little more seriously and trying to do things other than for my own pleasure, hence the publishing.

My studio equipment consists of:
PC running Sibelius 4, Sonar 6 and various VST Instruments and Samplers.
Roland XV-5050
E-MU Vistuoso
Roland CM-300
Roland PC-200 Keyboard
Boss SE70
TC-Helicon Voice Works
Behringer Multicom Pro XL (MDX4600)
Audio Technica AT4033
Audio Technica ATM63HE
HH 10 Channel mixer
Roland VS-24000
Edirol MA-15D Micro Monitors
Godin Solidac
Ibanez - S2170FW