Self-taught in music, after many years of a career in public policy, Alan recently completed an MMus in composition at Trinty College of Music in 2010, and is now studying for a composition PhD, researching collaboration and narrative in music. His music seeks to offer some sort of interpretative narrative as a means of making sense of experience, is aiming to move, and change, the listener. Rather than reducing the listener to a passive consumer of sonic novelties, it seeks to engage them actively and therefore empower them to think, and potentially to act.

You can download scores and parts of his pieces from his web site, and listen to sound samples. You can also follow his blog, Composer’s Notes.

Sample works

Recent pieces include:
Three Serenades
for guitar, violin and ‘cello

Three Pieces
for guitar and cor anglais

Muted and Changing Voices
for flute, ‘cello and piano

Birdsong
for flute and organ

Symphony
for Winds, for wind orchestra

Songs from Yeats: part 1
for mezzo-soprano and orchestra

Four Problems
for wind quintet

Forthcoming pieces include:
Gone to flowers, every one
for brass quintet

Duo
for oboe and ‘cello