I’m a composer and multi-instrumentalist who in the past had the privilege to hold academic posts at a number of prestigious universities. I’ve worked with musicians and bands on stages and in studios around the world; been a writer and literary editor; an international lawyer (for my sins); and, in the dim forgotten recesses of memory, was for a number of years a member of the Penguin Cafe Orchestra.
I’m inspired by many people and things; the ability of Ozu to find the beauty in everyday life, the cinematography of Tarkovsky that simultaneously challenges and leaves space for reflection, the non-linear narratives of Iñárritu and Vonegut; the humanity and wit of Sarramago and Orwell, the wordscapes and language-games of Borges, Calvino, Kafka, Derrida and Deleuze, the emancipatory strategies of Ghandi, Camus, Foucault and Amartya Sen, the pessimism of Ballard and Phillip K. Dick, the optimism of Solzhenitsyn and Asimov; and the artworks of Hepworth, Rothko, Matisse and Chagall. Then there is music and the endless search to develop and expand its language and expression found amongst others in Ligeti, Messiaen, Feldman, Schoenberg and Cage; Part, Adams, Reich, and Glass; Miles Davies, John Coltrane, Keith Jarrett and Herbie Hancock; Klaus Schulze, Cabaret Voltaire, Throbbing Gristle and Holger Czukay, not to mention single malt whisky, Malaysian food and the lunar driven comings and goings of the sea.