Born in 1948; both my parents were professional pianists. I started composing aged about ten. I studied violin first and was in the Ealing Youth Orchestra, where my unorthodox bowing was remarked upon. After taking up the guitar and saxophone I ended up playing in various Brazilian, African, and Jazz outfits in London, including my band Balloon which played my compositions. I brought back a shakuhachi from Japan in 1975 and started playing traditional Japanese music. Later I got into panpipes, and played on some film soundtracks as an "ethnic flute specialist". In 1988 I became a rent refugee (having had over 30 addresses in London) and went to live in the Catalan Pyrenees, where alongside painting for a living, I retuned the panpipes in wholetones and developed them as a Jazz instrument, and pioneered them at local jazz festivals. Unfortunately they can't compete with local drummers. Now I'm in the South of France where I teach saxophone, play sax and panpipes in a jazz big band, clarinet in an Algerian shaabi band, and work on my alternative instruments website.
