I have combined a career as one of the most internationally pre-eminent academy presidents (having led Royal Birmingham Conservatoire, Dartington College, and Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts) with a busy life conducting, playing and writing. I was awarded fellowships in Europe with Pierre Thibaud in Paris and Pierre Boulez in the USA. I gained my doctorate in 1983 and in 1992 a Churchill Fellowship took me to Juilliard, Eastman and Curtis.

I played with City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, later becoming founding Principal of the new, now Royal Birmingham Conservatoire, launching it with Sir Michael Tippet OM. Together with Sir Peter Wright and the Royal Ballet, I began Conduct for Dance.

I was awarded an OBE in the New Year's Honours list in 2011. I am also the recipient of honorary degrees, Fellowships from the Royal College of Music and Royal Society of Edinburgh, and French honours: Knight Officier dans l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres (cultural merit) and Knight Chevalier de l’Ordre National de la Légion d’honneur. In 2019 I was awarded the Grand Decoration of Honour for Services to the Republic of Austria. Currently, I serve as Diretor do Colegio, Universidade de Macau, travelling between Asia and Europe with a Stokowski desk trunk formerly belonging to conductor and Oscar-winning composer Elmer Bernstein.