Michael Finnissy was born in Tulse Hill (South London) in 1946. He studied at the Royal College of Music with Bernard Stevens and Humphrey Seale, and in Italy with Roman Vlad. Much of his early work was first performed in France and the Netherlands, while he was working as a freelance repetiteur and pianist for dance-classes. He then taught at the Royal Academy of Music (London), at the universities of Sussex and Southampton, and at the Katholiek Universiteit in Leuven. He has also given summer courses at Dartington, and been resident artist at the Victorian College of the Arts in Melbourne (Australia). He has been featured composer at the Huddersfield Festival several times, at the Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras, and many other places across the world, most recently at SICPP in Boston USA. He was president of the ISCM from 1990-96, and is now an honorary member. His work is most consistently recorded by Metier/Divine Art and NMC, and published by Verlag Neue Music GmbH (Berlin), Oxford University Press, United Music Publishing and Universal Edition.