BORN 1947 in West Wales. Being welsh means (quite literally) being something of an outsider. Although I have worked for much of my life within established traditions, I have always felt the need to challenge and question cultural assumptions.
EDUCATED at Southampton University and at the Janacek Academy in Brno. Czechoslovakia is a long way from Wales - at the centre of things as opposed to on the fringes. I learned to love its vibrant musical atmosphere, political awareness and the directness, humour, energy and openness of the people as well as the beautiful scenery and Moravian wines. Later on I gained a completed a doctorate at Sussex University on “The Process of Renewal in Music”.
WORKED as a hornplayer, teacher, lecturer, composer, jazz musician and eventually (since 1983) as a university lecturer in Chichester. My main commitment today is to Community Music and the therapeutic applications of music. I trained as a music therapist at Roehampton University and I am a director of Sound Sense, the UK Development Agency for Community Music. I have spent the last 20 years develping and refining the LIFEMUSIC method. This work resonates with my conviction that music is too valuable a resource to be left to “experts”. We are all musicians - regardless of background or ability - music is a birthright and the Lifemusic concept and method is devoted to supporting this function of music as a community resource and therapeutic tool.
BREAKTHROUGH came in 1975 when I went through an inner crisis. Music was the medicine which hauled me out of this - though not classical music. I rediscovered improvisation, composed a rock musical, began playing jazz seriously and started working with all kinds of people all of which helped me to get back in touch with the fundaments of music - expressive, physical, spontaneous, vibrational, transformative.
IMPROVISING and COMPOSING are central to everything I do. I improvise daily and encourage others to do the same. Lifemusic workshops are centred around improvisation. Everyone can improvise/compose. In a classical training, improvisation is usually neglected. This is tragic - so many with Grade VIII and nowhere to go! (Except of course to a Lifemusic workshop!) I also compose written down music (improvisation slowed down) and semi-improvised “crossover” work. The biggest works in this form are the Ascension Jazzmass (1990/1993/2000) and the Music for St. Cuthman (1985/1999).
I enjoy any ACADEMIC activity which is driven by passion for the subject. My D.Phil developed a theory of improvisation based upon Hans Keller’s ideas about “foreground and background structure” combined with Robert Wikin’s notion of the “Holding Form” (in The Intelligence of Feeling, 1974). It also draws inspiration from Robert Pirsig’s masterpiece Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance.