He attended Marlborough College where in a school music competition he was spotted by Sydney Watson who offered him a scholarship to Christ Church, Oxford, in spite of unfavourable A-level results.

He turned this down in favour of an exhibition to Magdalene College, Cambridge, where he received piano lessons from Lamar Crowson and John Lill.

[4] He won the Bournemouth-Parry International Festival composition prize in 1999[5] and has received numerous commissions for orchestral works, opera and chamber music.

It received its first performance on 8 November 2014 conducted by the composer and with the Welsh Camerata, for whom the piece had been written, and soloists including Emma Kirkby.

In 2016 he finished a fresh reconstruction of J S Bach's St Mark Passion for which he composed the recitatives and a number of short choruses in the style of the great master.