Alan Taylor

After years as a composer and community musician, I now do research on the musical imagination and musical meaning making. My work consists primarily of digesting a wide range of research and writing summaries aimed at lay audiences and syntheses of research aimed at academic audiences. The main subjects I have investigated are how the musical imagination works, how imaginative work can be shared in collaborative projects, meaning-making by listeners, and audience story-perception of music.

I also direct the Herne Hill Music Festival in London, conduct or play in several community ensembles, enjoy travelling in France and Spain and using my knowledge of the national languages, and going on long-distance cycling trips. Before taking up music in mid life I worked as a geography academic and then as a senior local government officer, and in my spare time was a political activist.