A brief bit about how I ended up doing what I do.

I started writing and arranging music aged fifteen for the orchestras, wind bands and choirs at school. In hindsight, that was a slightly odd thing to enjoy doing. But I think what I actually enjoyed was music's power to bring people together. That value has become an important part of my life. It is a belief that fuels my work and my commitment to the Choir With No Name. 

I was lucky to have a good music education and went on to study a degree in composition at Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance under the tutelage of Paul Newland, Ed Jessen, Stephen Montague and Dominic Murcott. I heard a lot of things, saw a lot of things and had the opportunity to fail at a lot of things. This was sometimes liberating and at other times demoralising though ultimately probably the best way to learn. In 2011, when "flash mobs" were in their infancy, I set about putting one together with college mate Fred Feeney. The London Flash Choir was our idea to recruit a 100 strong choir of anyone who would take notice of us and head to the streets of London to perform. We set up a simple website with a date, time and location for a rehearsal. Before long we had five hundred people signed up, people flying in from abroad to take part and the BBC along to film the whole occasion. It was a success and found global coverage overnight. I remember feeling quite taken aback by the combined power of music and the web and I certainly didn't realise the lasting impact that the project might have on my future work. 

I later met the jazz musician and Artistic Director for Tomorrow's Warriors, Gary Crosby. Tomorrow's Warriors were and still are Artists in Residence at the Southbank Centre and before long Gary had got me to write, arrange and direct projects for his big band and orchestras. We performed in venues big and small up and down the country and I had the opportunity to work alongside artists who are now well on their ways to becoming household names. I still regularly see Gary and his partner Janine. Their work with Tomorrow's Warriors is hugely inspiring and focusses on getting young people (particularly from an African diaspora) into the jazz community. 

As the music college days drew to a close, I convinced my two pals Elliot and Sophie to join me in trying to get Around The World in 14 Days. We had two simple rules - we couldn't spend any of our own cash and we had to use music to make it happen. After hours of calling CEOs, attempting to garner press support and trying to get people around the world to take some notice of us, we somehow made it work. STA Travel and Squarespace came on board and we flew 32,000 miles from London-Lisbon-Rio de Janeiro-Panama-NYC-LA-Sydney-Kuala Lumpur and back home again. We wrote a song; we played it, we gigged it and we got as many people as possible in all of those locations to sing it. It still lives on the project website if you can be bothered to go and watch. 

When I left music college I went to work for the WPP media agency Mindshare. My time at the company was an invaluable business masterclass in the media and advertising worlds and gave me huge insight into the economics of "the audience". But for the first time in my life I wasn't around music all day everyday and I missed it a lot. Mindshare were wholly supportive of my involvement with The Choir With No Name which meant that I was still playing but I was on the lookout for new projects. It was around this time that I met Nick Corbin - frontman of the London soul outfit New Street Adventure. The band had just recorded their first album entitled "No Hard Feelings" on Acid Jazz records and I couldn't get enough of it. I've been playing piano in the band ever since and recent gigs have seen us play alongside Gregory Porter, Roy Ayers, The Blow Monkeys and The Brand New Heavies. The second album will be recorded and released on Acid Jazz records later this year. 

And from Mindshare, I moved on to Adelphoi Music in September of last year. You can read all about what I'm up to and where the business is heading here.