Biography
Award-winning composer, flautist and vocalist. From a wooden flute at fifteen to stages, studios and sound journeys across the world.
I started playing flute at the age of fifteen. I was already earning a living while at school, buying and selling small antiques found in junk stores. On one occasion I spotted an old wooden flute, took it home and began teaching myself.
A school friend invited me to a jazz club where I met Sonny Stitt, who had played with Miles Davis. Over the course of a week, Sonny taught me the rudiments of improvisation and jazz. Leaving school the next year, I enrolled at Winchester School of Art, studying classical repertoire, and two years later won a scholarship to the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, with private lessons from Marcel Moyse and James Galway.
I graduated and won a French Government Scholarship for advanced study at L'Ecole Normale de Musique, attending the masterclasses of Jean-Pierre Rampal, and had an invaluable lesson with the legendary Nadia Boulanger, who inspired me to always consider the tonal colour of sound.
Dave Stewart and Annie Lennox invited me to become a founding member of Eurythmics. The years that followed involved touring across many territories: concerts throughout Scandinavia, a performance for the Dalai Lama in Belfast, work with the didgeridoo player Alan Dargin in Sydney, a Mardi Gras show with the Grateful Dead at the Oakland Coliseum, the stage shared with Al Di Meola in Miami, and a concert with Donovan in Ireland.
Back in the UK, I was introduced to the producer David Lord, beginning a bond that lasted many fruitful years, and in Los Angeles an ongoing collaboration with composer Michael Hoppe. Conversations with Ram Dass and Timothy Leary about the effect of music on consciousness inspired me to research the therapeutic power of sound in more detail.
With sound artist Cherub Sanson I co-founded the Academy of Integrated Sonic Medicine, a year-long curriculum to advance therapeutic sound, and Quantum Sound, curating recorded and live performances. Tim and David Lord scored the films Stanley, starring Timothy Spall, and The Tell Tale Heart, featuring Steven Berkoff. The Future is Sound presented me with their first Lifetime Services to the Power of Sound award.