Alan Mills
My music aims to utilise various "traditional" musical elements as a conscious reaction against certain trends in contemporary music. Thus I make free use of tonal structures showing the influence of twentieth-century French music, neo-classicism and modern jazz to create a personal language.'
Alan Mills was born in Belfast. After studying piano at the Ulster College of Music he went on to take an MA in music at Cambridge University, studying composition with Hugh Wood and Robin Holloway. This was followed by two years of study at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London. In 1988 he was awarded the Lloyds Young Composer Prize and in 1993 the Lower Machen Festival Prize. He has broadcast for the BBC, Radio France and Dutch Television, and at present works in London as pianist, lecturer and singing coach, and abroad with a number of opera companies.