I
was born in Thornaby on Tees in 1936. From
my earliest childhood I was exposed to music. My mother was the local
piano teacher and eight pupils each evening of the week turned up at
our house for lessons. All of these lessons and obviously a range of
piano music from rolex replica the easiest to the most demanding I heard throughout
my childhood and adolescence. In addition to this, my father had a
collection of records, some 80s, the rest 78s, which he had built up
for use with silent rolex replica watches
films, as before 'talkies' one of his jobs had
been that of sound effects man behind the scenes. My mother was on
the other side of the screen in the orchestra pit and this is how
they came to meet.
I had piano lessons from a
very early age from my mother's most advanced pupil, Muriel Thomas
and, having seen the film 'The Magic Bow', for some years tried my
hand at the violin. I was never as good as Paganini but quite a bit
better than Stewart Granger.
But it was
becoming a server at the local Parish Church of St Paul's that
introduced me to fake rolex the organ. I studied privately for 'O' Level Music
with the organist there, Harold Maddock, and after that I began
lessons with him at St Aidan's in Middlesbrough as in the interim he
had moved there. A close friend, Michael Addison, who was at that
time organ scholar at Hatfield College, Durham prepared me for the
North of England Musical Tournament, which I won at the age of 17,
and later persuaded Conrad Eden to accept me as a pupil and under his
tuition I gained my ARCO.
I was organist and
choirmaster at St John's Church Middlesbrough from 1958 - 1968 and
organist at St Giles Church Norwich for 22 years from 1969.
I
formed and directed two chamber choirs, The Lyrian Singers and Sine
Nomine, the leadership of which I relinquished in 2001 after 22
years. Under my direction these choirs performed in a range of venues
in and near Amsterdam and Rouen, La Charite sur Loire, Hanover and
Berlin.
As a composer I was the first winner
of the RSCM Harold Smart Anthem Competition and have had choral and
organ pieces performed in St Paul's Cathedrals, (London and
Melbourne), Norwich and Peterborough Cathedrals, York Minster, Kings
College Cambridge inter alia.
A
close friendship with the hymn writer Fred Pratt Green led to the
publication of several hymns with tunes which are published jointly
by the Hope Publishing Company in the USA and Stainer & Bell in
the UK.