Geoffrey Burgon was born in 1941 in Hampshire, England. He was a late musical developer and it was not until he was fifteen that he took up the trumpet so that he could play jazz. He entered the Guildhall School of Music still intent on becoming a jazz trumpeter, but composition gradually took over as his major interest and when he left he supported himself and his family as a freelance trumpeter for several years. Then, at the age of thirty, he sold his trumpets and plunged into composition full time. Several impecunious years inevitably followed but gradually he began to make his name as a composer. He wrote several very successful ballet scores during this period, notably for Ballet Rambert and London Contemporary Dance Theatre, and then, in 1976, his Requiem was premiered at the Three Choirs Festival, and this work established him as a serious composer. Shortly afterwards he wrote the first of many successful scores for television.