[1] When he was seventeen, his elder brother Lester, then a medical student at Clare College, Cambridge, was killed in a motorcycle accident at the age of nineteen.
As well as Brough himself, the band's members included Christopher Purves,[8] Jeremy Taylor, Jonny Griffiths, Neil McArthur (who performed under the name Reg Prescott), Richard Allen and Andrew Huggett.
Between then and 1987, they performed new stage shows regularly and in a variety of venues, including the Royal Albert Hall, Sadler's Wells Theatre, The Forum, Ronnie Scott's Jazz Club and the Tempodrom in Berlin, and made many television appearances.
[24] His collaboration with composer Jocelyn Pook led to contributions to the soundtracks for the film Eyes Wide Shut[1][25] and the television series In a Land of Plenty.
[4] It was recorded by Smudged Discs in 2010 with the choirs of Clare College Cambridge and Portsmouth Cathedral, alongside Brough's 2004 pieces Valete in Pace and i carry your heart.
[37] The performance of her suite A Hum About Mine Ears at the Barbican Centre in 2016,[38] with two choirs and the Britten Sinfonia, also featured his composition Take This Slave of Music.
[41] New works by Brough that have been premiered by Vox Holloway include A Particulare Care, The Year of Jubilee, Adolesce, Cry Palestine, Linguis, Incantation of Eden, The City in the Sea and Music on the Mind.
In May 2017, he was invited to conduct the junior LSO Discovery Choir for the London Symphony Orchestra between September 2017 and Easter 2018, replacing Lucy Griffiths.
His composition Ona's Flood, written as a companion piece to Britten’s Noye's Fludde, draws centrally on themes of climate change.
[48] A Particulare Care, written in response to a moving exhibit at the Foundling Museum, highlights the plight of orphans and the increasing problem of homelessness.
[49] Other works also carry significant social themes: The Year of Jubilee (2013) tells the story of the Fisk Jubilee Singers in a dramatic and moving depiction of slavery in the American South,[50] while Music on the Mind (2015) is based on themes of mental illness; its premiere featured a performance from the Mind and Soul Community Choir, based at the Maudsley Hospital.