| He was Professor of Percussion at the Darmstadt International Summer Courses from 1982 to 1994, and during that time was a regular visitor to contemporary music festivals around the world as a solo percussionist. He is the founder/director of the highly acclaimed New London Chamber Choir with whom he has built up a huge repertoire and has made several CDs - he is also founder and director of London's Centre for Microtonal Music and its ensemble, Critical Band. As a guest conductor, he works regularly with musikFabrik, Champ d'Action, Netherlands Radio Choir and Berlin Radio Choir, and has also worked with the BBCSO, Belgian Radio Philharmonic, Netherlands Radio Symphony, Krakow Radio Orchestra, London Sinfonietta, Ensemble InterContemporain, L'Itinéraire, Ensemble 2e2m, Netherlands Wind Ensemble, Percussion Group the Hague, Swedish Radio Choir, Netherlands Radio Choir, Flemish Radio Coir and Tokyo Philharmonic Choir. In November 2002 he conducted the world premiere of Stockhausen's Engel-Prozessionen with the Netherlands Radio Choir at the Amsterdam Concertgebouw, and which has now been released on CD by Stockhausen-Verlag.
As a composer his interests have led to a wide range of works for almost every conceivable genre. He has realised commissions from such diverse sources as the Arditti String Quartet, Electric Phoenix, IRCAM, Amadinda Percussion Group (Budapest), Internationales Musikinstitut Darmstadt, the Royal National Theatre (London), the BBC and the ARD (Association of German Radio Stations). He has twice been commissioned for the Proms - the first time (1989) for the orchestral work, Oreion, in which he conducted the BBC Symphony Orchestra, and the second time (1995) for the Percussion Concerto, Two men meet, each presuming the other to be from a distant planet, for Steven Schick and Critical Band. Since 1996 he has become increasingly involved in the world of electronics and electro-acoustic music, as demonstrated both in his IRCAM commission, Mountain Language, for alphorn, MIDI-cowbells and computer, premiered in Paris by soloists of the Ensemble InterContemporain with the composer in June1998, and Jodo, a 40-minute music theatre work based on a short story of Yukio Mishima, for solo percussionist, high soprano and computer. In January 2005 Jodo enjoyed a highly successful tour of Japan in a new production by Satoshi Miyagi, and plans are under way for a further Japanese tour in 2006.
Between 2002 and 2005 he produced his largest work so far, a two-act opera based on the life and visions of Hildegard of Bingen. Jointly commissioned by Percussion Group the Hague, New London Chamber Choir and Champ d'Action, Hildegard is scored for soprano and baritone soloists, chamber choir, large ensemble and electronics. The first production of Hildegard took place in May 2005, with Sarah Leonard and Omar Ebrahim as principal soloists, conducted by Jonathan Stockhammer, and was received with enormous enthusiasm by capacity audiences in the cathedrals of Norwich, St David's and Salisbury, as well as St. John's, Smith Square, London.
Major awards include the 1993 Gemini Fellowship, the 1995/6 Arts Foundation Fellowship for electro-acoustic composition, and a Holst Foundation Award.
- His music is recorded on:
- Wergo (Stoicheia)
- Continuum (Ho shang Yao, Choroi kai Thaliai, Rogosanti and Incantamenta)
- Mode (Village Burial with Fire and Spirit Festival with Lamentations)
- NMC (Two men meet, each presuming the other to be from a distant planet, Venancio Mbande talking with the trees and Phainomena)
- London Independent Records (Crying bird, echoing star)
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