A Sydney-sider by birth and breeding, I moved back last year after a decade in the US (mainly Cambridge MA). Still finding my feet, what with everything that's changed, and hasn't changed! Happy to be back in the sunshine though; looking forward to a bit of serious beaching/ bushwalking.

My life focus is composition. The music I write tends to be on the experimental, challenging side, but I'm open to pretty much any genre.

I spend a lot of time analyzing stuff, which I often articulate out loud (for better or worse). Boredom is pretty foreign to me; I tend to find everything intriguing in some way. Which explains my popularity with children, dogs and the elderly.

I'd say I'm generally considered a decent person and a good friend. In fact, one of my old jobs required me to be actively supportive and courteous at all times, so niceness is a guaranteed default at this stage.

I have some kind of career as an educator type, so I suppose that’s doing something with my life. My ambitions center more around creative pursuits though, particularly composing for chamber ensembles, orchestras and opera companies, and writing prose, poetry, anything really. Beyond that, hoping to become the best chardonnay socialist I can be.

Eating; sleeping; procrastinating; staring at the wall; thinking methodically and systemically, often while staring at the wall; being right all the time; keeping people amused; and music stuff.

My third eye.

Also, how loud my voice is, especially when saying something inappropriate.

Books: The Future Eaters, Fatal Shore, The Shock of the New, Dune, Fahrenheit 451, The Left-hand of Darkness, Gormenghast, The Etched City, Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell, anything Narnian, anything Middle Earth, Dirt Music, Brief Interviews With Hideous Men, Schrödinger’s Ball, Tender is the Night, Perfume, Vanity Fair (the novel, not the mag)

Movies: Run Lola Run, Stalingrad, City of Lost Children, Queen Margot, Muriel’s Wedding, Solomon and Gaenor, Rope, 28 Days Later, Nightwatch, Daywatch, anything David Lynch, anything Hitchcock, Bad Education, Harold and Maude, South Park, Starship Troopers, Syriana. Though of course, as we all know, good TV is the new cinema. Speaking of which...

Television: League of Gentlemen, IT Crowd, Yes Minister, Arrested Development, Kath & Kim, The Games, Veronica Mars, Planet Earth, Breaking Bad, True Blood, Doctor Who, Battlestar Galactica, Game of Thrones, anything Whedon-related.

Music: In the "classical" category, assorted goodies by Bartok, Birtwistle, Brahms, Berg, Britten, Byrd, Carter, Ives, Ligeti, Lindberg, Lutoslawski, Mahler, Maxwell Davies, Messiaen, Rameau, Sculthorpe, Stravinsky, Szymanowski, Wagner, Weir and Xenakis. From other genres, Stephen Sondheim, Michael Nyman, Noël Coward, Ella Fitzgerald, Christy Moore, Tool, Radiohead, Nicki Minaj, Presets and various crappy orchestral movie scores

Food: Thai, Malaysian, Korean, Japanese, Vietnamese, traditional English, Spanish, Lebanese, Indian, Australian/Asian fusion, Tibetan/American diner chic fusion (yes, it does exist, and not just in my mind)

I can also rant about Radio, Art and/or Theatre on request.

Eateries, especially Asian ones, fancy ones, and fancy Asian ones; music, even the bad stuff; drama/comedy in either a televisual, cinematic, theatrical or literary form; outdoorsy, semi-rural seclusion (but not all the time); family and friends; a moral framework

Composition (of the musical variety), the state of the world, other people’s problems, the obvious (wink, wink, nudge, nudge).

Grateful there’s no such thing as a typical Friday night. Working, fun in with or without friends, fun out with or without friends: it’s all fair game.

I really enjoy my privacy.

Your eyes don’t glaze over reading this profile, and you're not too old (tend to get on better with younger people).

A thorough disinterest in game-playing and manipulation is also a plus.