Born in Birmingham in 1938 of expatriate Lancashire parents, Graham read Music at Durham University where he conducted the Durham Colleges Light Opera Group in performances of operatic works by Schubert and Walter Leigh as well as Gilbert & Sullivan. He also conducted the Durham Colleges Orchestra in a season of symphony concerts, and was for several years Organist and Choirmaster of St. Mary-le-Bow.

He made a post-graduate study of the structural functions of

harmony in the music of Schoenberg and composers of the Second Viennese School, the influence of which he believes to be felt in his more serious works.

Being called to the priesthood in the Church of England, Graham completed his theological training at St. Chad’s College, Durham, and spent the greater part of his ministry in the North West of England, retiring in 2002 from being Vicar of St. Luke, Chadderton.

He now lives in Rochdale, where he has found time to return to his first love of composing, and is looking to the future with many musical ideas waiting to be realised in scores of different proportions.  

Among his orchestral compositions are the Suite, Medlock Way, which he wrote for the Oldham Symphony Orchestra, and Landscapes of Rochdale, a suite of three impressions of local scenes. Eurostar 10.14.10, is a musical journey by train through the Channel Tunnel.  A set of six

Constellation Capers is an experiment in writing ‘serially light music’.  A three movement piano concerto, Concerto for John, was written for concert pianist, John Peace, and a Fantasy Violin Concerto is in process of being completed.

 His chamber music includes a Wind Quintet and a suite for Cello and Piano entitled, Balades dans Paris. String Hosanna, for String Quartet, is a suite of three transcriptions of well-known hymn tunes.   

A meditation for organ, Eloi, which he wrote for the organ of Liverpool Metropolitan Cathedral and its organist, Richard Lea, was premièred in September 2008.  New pieces with the same organ and organist in mind have recently been completed: Merry Hell and Pietà, while A Centenary Flourish, written for the Oldham, Rochdale and Tameside Organists Association celebration of a hundred years’ existence is due to be included a Centenary Album to be published later this year.   

Last year he founded the Rochdale Light Orchestra and became its first conductor.  The orchestra’s aim is to provide local musicians with an opportunity to rehearse and perform good music of a light-

hearted nature of all styles.