BIOGRAPHY     

The Start   Born in London, Andy started playing the piano at 4 years old, the organ at eight, and drums and percussion at 11yrs. He aspired to be a concert pianist, but having discovered that there were many other things in life apart from just playing the piano, he turned down a scholarship to the RCM whilst still very young, to pursue a more traditional academic education. However he continued private classical piano and composition studies. Andy played in a number of local bands and developed his skills as a solo performer giving many concerts around the Country. His first TV appearance and radio broadcast were made when he was just 11 years of age. He eventually went on to study at Keele University where he graduated with an Honours degree in Music and Electronics, having studied composition and studio techniques with the late Tim Souster. He also studied with Peter Dickinson and Roger Marsh, whilst pursuing an interest in Jazz with Prof. Cecil Lytle from the Julliard School of Music. Andy's degree dissertation was on the music of the band 'Earth Wind and Fire' of which he is a big fan.

After graduating, Andy continued with his career as a performer, both as a solo keyboardist and jazz pianist building a reputation as a formidable virtuoso artist. Andy also continued to perform as drummer and percussionist with the rock band ‘Random Access’. During this period, Andy started producing some recordings on the Fairlight CMI, (the world's first computer sampler), at 'The Clockhouse Studio', Keele. These recordings were engineered by Cliff Bradbury, who then passed them on to his friend and professional composer, Tim Souster. Tim suggested Andy should send them to The DeWolfe Production Music Library. When 'Random Access' split up in 1983, Andy sent a demo to DeWolfe. This was the beginning of a long and productive career writing music for TV, film, advertising and radio.

Also at this time, Andy became a regular composer for Central Television in Birmingham, writing theme tunes and incidental music for many of their best known productions including 'Central Weekend' which ran for more than twelve years. As well as the theme tune to the documentary covering the event, Andy also wrote music included in the Queen's opening ceremony of the ICC and Symphony Hall, and music for the National Sealife Centre Birmingham. Central TV made a short documentary film about Andy's work with the Fairlight CMI whilst at Keele.

Writing for the deWolfe production music library has given Andy the opportunity to develop compositional technique in a huge variety of different musical styles and genres which would be very difficult to achieve anywhere else in the music industry. Few composers would have the facility to write so much material in so many different areas ranging from avant-garde electro acoustic and computer generated music, through jazz and easy listening, to big band, orchestral rock and film music.

In the last couple of years alone, projects have included world music, Italian music, jazz quartet, solo piano, Christmas music and orchestral fantasy film music. Andy is currently scoring a project of very early jazz and ragtime music for small band.

Andy has worked with many of the top arrangers and musical directors in the business, including Nick Ingmann, Steve Sidwell and Levine Andrade, together with the UK's finest orchestras and session musicians from the London Symphony Orchestra, Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, BBC Concert Orchestra and Big Band, The London Telefilmonic orchestra and Birmingham Royal Ballet Sinfonia. Andy is a full member of the PRS, a Professional Member of the British Academy of Composers and Songwriters, a member of PAMRA, and the Musicians Union.

He is married with three children. His interests include; the kids, music, badminton, walking, reading, aviation sports, astronomy, but not necessarily in that order!

Academic
Andy's father was a radio engineer in the RAF during the war, later becoming a dispensing chemist when returning to civilian life. This meant Andy was brought up in an environment where science was given a high priority.  He maintained an interest particularly in electronics and physics, which meant that working in music technology was a natural progression. Having studied Maths, Physics and Music at A-level, Andy went on to do his combined honours degree in Music and Electronics at Keele University. This was one of only a handful of institutions that provided the opportunity to combine such different disciplines at the time. 

Whilst at Keele, he took part in a number of music related research projects. This culminated in providing very high quality piano recordings that were used in the development of Analogue-Digital, and Digital-Analogue converters, which were part of a programme leading to the production of the Compact Disc by Sony/Phillips.

This expertise lead to Andy becoming a freelance Music Technology consultant employed by companies such as Dawsons Music Ltd, giving many lectures and demonstrations around the Country. He also worked for the R&D department of Yamaha UK, touring with the Yamaha Midi Grand and working with Sal Gallina, who was responsible for the development of the Yamaha Midi Wind controller. Andy has taught/lectured at The National Institute of Recording Arts, Salford University, Birmingham Conservatoire, The Institute of Electrical Engineers, Keele University, RNCM, as well as giving talks and demonstrations for both national academic events, and at prestigious venues in the commercial sector such as BBC Manchester and Central Television.

Andy held a part-time post as Lecturer in Music Technology at Manchester Metropolitan University for ten years, during which time he completely redesigned the studio facility there.

Production Music
Andy has recorded and contributed to around 50 Production Music albums for the Dewolfe, Rouge Music and Hudson Music catalogues in a huge range of styles from baroque to Britpop, jazz quartet to symphony orchestra.

His first album ‘Mirage’, recorded on the Fairlight CMI at Keele University in 1983, was a worldwide success with tracks from the album still being broadcast some 20 years later. This album was re-released as one of the first production music CD's in the world with the catalogue no. DWCD 0001.

The album ‘The Cutting Edge’ was listed as one of the top 10 most used Library CD's in the world during 1988.

Andy has had 'fan-mail' from as far away as Australia. 

A number of tracks from Andy’s ‘World Music’ series, produced in the mid 90’s, were included in the Global Music compilation album ‘One World’ which got as high as No.3 in some UK charts in 1998.

Andy's tracks have won a number of prizes including first place in the Unisong International Song Competition (World Music section) for 'Earth Song'. 

His music is regularly broadcast in more than 20 countries throughout the world with screen credits ranging from Hollywood movies and Imax films to many of the UK's most famous adverts.

Songwriting
For some years Andy has collaborated with other writers and lyricists in writing songs. One very successful area for Andy has been the children's songs he has co-written with Mike Prescott. These songs have been performed widely at both school music festivals, and at important venues such as Symphony Hall Birmingham, and the Victoria Concert Hall, Hanley. Many of these children's songs have been recorded on CD and further details can be obtained on the Staffordshire Schools website.

The song 'This Magical Night' recorded by the Crawley Ridge Junior School Choir appears on Andy's latest CD for DeWolfe Muisc Ltd. ' Children's Magical World'. This song received its first public performance in February2005 at the Staffordshire Schools Pyramid Music Festival. 

Organ Music
Andy studied classical organ performance whilst at Keele University, however it is in the light music field that he is best known.

Andy has performed at most of the major Theatre Organ venues and given both electronic and pipe organ concerts throughout the UK over the years since making his first radio and TV broadcasts at 11yrs of age.

Andy has regularly broadcast on the specialist BBC Radio 2  programme:
The Organist Entertains

He is the proud owner of a pristine vintage Hammond A100 tonewheel organ and Leslie cabinet. This instrument can be heard on a number of his albums, most notably 'Latin Lounge', DWCD 0275. Andy also has a Yamaha HX5, and a small pipe organ in his studio at home.