He was educated at King Edward's School, Birmingham, and at Lincoln College, Oxford (MA, DPhil) culminating with a dissertation on Wagner's sketches for Rienzi, and is currently Emeritus Professor of Music at King's College London.
After graduation he worked as full-time director of music at St Wolfgang, Munich, where he continued his research on Wagner and acted as a conductor and broadcaster.
He is now the Professor Emeritus[1] Deathridge is one of the world's foremost Wagner experts and a noted authority on Beethoven.
His career includes being a radio and television broadcaster and a reviewer for scholarly music journals in Germany and the United Kingdom.
Music and social theory is a keen research interest of Deathridge, in particular the work of Theodor W. Adorno.