I was born in Scotland in the year the Beatles really became famous, and two years later, moved to Australia, where I spent the next 30 or so years growing up and then teaching music and theatre in Queensland schools.

My childhood music education was performing in every band and show that would take me, and at family parties around the kitchen table with a dozen or so singers, spoon players, accordionists, a banjo player and an occasional fiddler, singing and playing into the wee hours.

I studied Music and Theater Education at Kelvin Grove BCAE, and then triple majored at the University of Queensland, Brisbane, in Music History and Composition (under Bracanan and Brumby), and English Literature. I started writing musicals in 1993, and have continued a great collaboration with Mary, Simon, Jo, Jane, Ian and Gail ever since.

In 2000, I moved to the United States, where I lived in Baltimore for a time, conducting the Chesapeake and Middle River Concert Bands, before settling down in Leesburg, Virginia ( west of Washington DC). I am involved in theatre in the DC area with the Washington Rogues and Three Penney Productions, and am currently workshopping a work in progress in New York City. I am always working on one show or another, or updating midi files, or band parts or arranging something else whenever I can. Somehow, I even found the time to write this bio!