‘At the moment I think of writing music as about making connections— connections between the matter of individual movements, between movements themselves, between pieces and also between the music of others. I often begin with a few fragments? of my own, or another composers work? as a starting point. In recent years I have been drawn to unfinished things, as in the Nancarrow Concerto which is made from sketches and fragments of a Pianola Concerto by Nancarrow. I would like to create a sense of several things happening simultaneously, at the moment before they tip over into the perception of a single event.’

Born in Hackney, London in 1970, Paul studied guitar and piano at the Royal Academy of Music and composition at Kings College, London with David Lumsdaine and Nicola Lefanu. He went on to complete an MA in Music at the University of York, studying with David Blake, and also writing studies of Ligeti and Nancarrow. In 1999 Paul was given the Young Composers Award at the Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival where the Arditti Quartet played short-listed works that year. Since then Paul has written two pieces for the Ardittis, and made arrangements of Nancarrow Studies for them, commissioned by Audi AG and West Deutscher Rundfunk. Other commissions came from South West German Radio for the 2004 Donaueschinger Musiktage and jointly from WDR and Ensemble Modern to write a piece based on sketches for a Pianola Concerto left unfinished by Nancarrow. This piece, the /Nancarrow Concerto/ was performed by Ensemble Modern and pianolist Rex Lawson for whom the Concerto was originally to have been written. It was described by one reviewer as ‘... cheerful turbulence, combining the genius of Nancarrow with that of Mickey Mouse’. Paul's music has been performed at the Bath International Music Festival, the Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival and Wien Modern, as well as in France, Germany and the USA by groups, soloists and conductors including the Composers Ensemble, Ensemble Aleph, Sarah Nicolls, Jonathan Powell, Hans Zender, Fabrice Bollon, the Arditti String Quartet, Ensemble Modern and the SWR Orchestra.

‘...Usher's A Crypt for Christina, whose concealed quotations yearn nostalgically for a world of unquestioned beauty.’

Allgemeine Zeitung On Nancarrow Concerto

‘The cheerful turbulence combined the genius of Nancarrow with that of Mickey Mouse.’

Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung

On A Crypt for Christina ‘...romantic dreamlike quality...’

Südkurier