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I seemed to have spent much of my life being dogged by Gilbert and Sullivan. I wouldn't describe myself as a fan, because that brings all sorts of stereotypes to mind (to my mind, at least). I do enjoy the Gilbert's words and Sullivan's music - and can even claim two family connections. So I'm giving into the inevitable and putting a page or two together with a few bits and pieces which I've collected over the years.

While still at school I took part in a comic opera based on Gilbert's The Palace of Truth. Entitled, The Tangled Web, I played the part of Mephistogar. You can hear some of the recording I made during performances in November 1975, see photos of the cast and read about Gilbert's play.

Thames Valley Grammar School (later Thames Valley College) in Twickenham, had a very active music team. I managed to record several of the school concerts during the mid-75s.

From 1976 to 1979 I took my music degree at Royal Holloway College, part of the University of London. While there I wrote music in a variety of styles which I've put together as MIDI files. With them are MIDI files of pieces by my school friend Simon Broughton and by the Victorian composer Hamilton Clarke.

While at university I completed a project on Sir Arthur Sullivan's grand opera Ivanhoe. I've started to put this up on the Web, but it's taking a long time.

In 1976/77 and 1977/78 I was a member of the Royal Holloway College Savoy Opera Society. First as a member of the chorus, and later as producer of Gilbert and Sullivan's Ruddygore, with the now well-known soprano Susan Bullock in the role of Rose Maybud. I've put up some photos and mp3s of those performances.

Also at university I completed some work on the connections between railways and music in Victorian England.

I've always been interested in British music, in particular that of Edward Elgar. This site contains some pages about his so-called Football Chant, his incidental music to The Starlight Express, and the music he wrote for the play King Arthur, which my ancestor Sir John Martin-Harvey initiated.

Liza Lehmann's song cycle, In a Persian Garden, for vocal quartet and piano was once very popular. It draws on Fitzgerald's translations of the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam. I've put together a page which looks at the way Lehmann used the translations in her cycle, and also at the complete HMV recording which appeared in various parts in 1915 and 1916. Excerpts from the recording are given included as mp3 files. Incidentally...my ancestor John Harvey built a yacht for Fitzgerald.

I've been collecting old 78 rpm records for years and have just embarked on digitising some of them. I've put some of the more interesting ones here as mp3s.

Synaesthesia is the ability to "see" music as colour. I don't have that ability, but I can see a connection. I've tried to illustrate this.

In 1996, my daughters' school in Tavistock were putting on an improvised dramatisation of C.S. Lewis's book The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. I was asked to write the music which has now been used for productions in the U.S., Canada and Australia.

The following year, 1997, saw a similar production of Vivian Ellis's 1950s music Listen to the Wind. I adapted his original music for this new production.