Alan Taylor - - - - - - - - > Composer

• teaching geography at Universities
• working in the British Civil Service and local government
• standing for UK Parliament
• successfully campaigning to change the law on aid to the Inner Cities
• successfully campaigning to change the law on the powers of local government
• commenting on election results for a UK television channel
• running the economic development service of a London Borough
• setting up a national network to support the development of co-ops
• helping produce and bring up two daughters
• running six marathons
• working as a consultant on the recycling sector

Since beginning to study and write music I have become a proficient clarinet, saxophone, and percussion player, and a modest violinist and violist. One of my pleasures is to travel round France and Spain, playing clarinet in the street.

I began writing soon after I began playing, and soon obtained performances for my pieces. My music has been played extensively in Britain, both by groups I have worked with directly and by others. It has been performed elsewhere in France, the USA, and Argentina.

My catalogue contains music from solo works through to full symphony orchestra. I describe my style as 'beyond post-modernism'. I draw on the many and varied styles of music available to us nowadays, but seek to created an integrated whole in each piece, and so go beyond the fragmentation in much post-modern art.

I studied composition with Peter Sander, Michael Finnissy, John Woolrich, and I am now studying for an MMus in Composition at Trinity College of Music, where my entry to the Runswick Composition prize in my first year of study was commended. My teachers there have been Andrew Poppy and Errolyn Wallen.

I have a long-standing involvement in community and amateur music. I conduct the Forum London Chamber Symphony and Southwark Consorts of Winds. I was chair of the musical charity, South London Community Music, and chair of Southwark Concert Band.

Visit my Sibelius Music Home Page where you can to see and hear my music , and download and print it if you like.