I didn’t originally intend to pursue composition… I started out by studying violin at Chetham's School of Music and fully intended on becoming a virtuoso violinist. However, after a bad bout of tendinitis left me barely able to move my left wrist my doctor gave me what at the time was very hard news to take, that I should consider a different career. Violin had been my heart and soul since my very early years and it was a very hard time but as they say everything happens for a reason…
I decided to send some of my compositions to the Royal College of Music in London who accepted me onto their undergraduate program. During my time there I was awarded the Lord Mayor’s Composition Award and finished with a BMus degree with distinction. Composing can be quite a solitary business but when film meets music it allows the composer to be a part of something bigger, a collaborator and part of a team. This is one of the many things that attracts me to writing film music.
I am really excited to have started working on my first projects as a film composer. Mainly in writing library music where some of my music has been placed in the Narrative Mind music library among others. I do really look forward to collaborating with directors though and gaining the experience of composing directly for films/productions. I am 29 years old and based in Liverpool, UK. Apart from writing library music my experience in the film music industry so far has come from conducting the orchestras in film scores for some short films during my time at Royal College of Music. |
My dream is to follow in the footsteps of John Williams. I admire his music so much for its rich complexity, emotional range and sensitivity, and the way he so accurately and powerfully heightens the character of any scene he scores. Not to mention his melodic genius of course!! I personally feel like there are increasingly fewer composers writing in the orchestral style with such range of emotion. I do hope that there will always be room for a composer to thrill with orchestral complexity and steal our hearts with a soaring melody since this is the type of film composer I would like to be.
Upon graduating from my composition studies at the Royal College of Music I felt drawn to become a conductor and was accepted into the Royal Northern College of Music on a scholarship in 2014. I think there will always be a part of me that longs to be a performer, I love the feeling of being on stage and reaching that higher level in the heat of the moment. I also feel like I have a good instinct for understanding the emotions that the composers intend. I would hope these skills would be transferable when it comes to the film score recording sessions. I graduated from my masters degree with distinction and the Robert Newwit Conducting Prize and thoroughly enjoyed my time at RNCM. I was grateful to receive fantastic opportunities working as assistant conductor with the BBC Philharmonic and Royal Liverpool Philharmonic orchestras and participate in masterclasses with conductors such as Sir Mark Elder and Vasily Petrenko. I do hope to conduct professionally in the future but at the moment am committing my efforts and hopes more towards writing film music.
Since leaving the RNCM I have been working as a wedding violinist, composer & conductor. I am so grateful that over these years my wrist has gradually recovered to the extent I can sustain a part time career performing violin. The nature of this work allows me time during the week to devote to composition as well as spending time with my little boy. In the last few years I have been commissioned to write a violin concerto, 2 one act ballets for KSDance and a symphonic poem entitled Celestial City which was premiered by Chester Philharmonic. My most recent commission was a full length ballet for New Creations Collective, to the story of "The Secret Garden."