At Brighton, Hove and Sussex Grammar School for Boys,[3] from the age of 11 he sang lead roles in Gilbert and Sullivan operas and was recognised as a good pianist, but few were aware that he was also writing music.

Missing music, Blake played the piano in pubs and clubs for a couple of years until being discovered and signed by EMI to make a solo album and work as a session musician on many recordings.

[4][5] In the late 1960s, on the recommendation of Bernard Herrmann,[6] Blake began working as a keyboard player and arranger with veteran screen composer Laurie Johnson on music for the hit ITV television series The Avengers.

Blake's concert version of The Snowman for narrator and orchestra is now performed worldwide, as is the full-length ballet of the same name, launched in 1997, which in 2013 celebrated its 16th consecutive Christmas season for Sadler's Wells at the Peacock Theatre in London.

Blake has composed many concert works, including the Piano Concerto commissioned by the Philharmonia Orchestra for the 30th birthday of Princess Diana in 1991, in which he also featured as soloist; the Violin Concerto to celebrate the centenary of the City of Leeds in 1993; the cantata to celebrate the 50th Anniversary of the United Nations in 1995, performed in the presence of the Royal Family in Westminster Hall; and the large-scale choral/orchestral work Benedictus, championed by Sir David Willcocks and the Bach Choir, which was given its London premiere in Westminster Cathedral in 1989 with Cardinal Basil Hume as narrator, and which has been widely performed ever since.