About me

Growing up in Germany, I had piano lessons from the age of eight to nineteen with Karl-Otto Plum, who could proudly trace his musical ‘ancestry’ (teacher-pupil lineage) back to Beethoven and Bach. During this time, I taught myself how to compose. I won several prizes in piano performance, including first prize in the 1994 Petrof International Piano Concours in Amsterdam, and a third prize at Jugend komponiert for my flute sonata.

I subsequently studied Music at King’s College, Cambridge, where Robin Holloway was my composition teacher, and graduated in 2000. After this, I entered the world of education, teaching piano one-to-one, qualifying as a secondary school teacher in London, and working as a lecturer in adult education. In 2008, I relocated to Somerset, and became father to two gorgeous children, all the while continuing to teach piano. I returned to composition in earnest in 2012, and in 2017 I won a Renée B. Fisher Award for my Folk Rhapsody for piano. That year, I enrolled at the University of Bristol as a part-time research student under the supervision of John Pickard, and am currently on course to be awarded a PhD in Musical Composition in 2026.

Since returning to university, I have performed in countless New Music concerts, including at three Bristol New Music Festivals (2018–2024), and as part of Bristol University’s New Music Ensemble, and in 2024 I co-founded the experimental and not entirely serious Middle Aisle Ensemble.