For thirty years he has influenced the thinking of successive generations of students and young professional composers in the UK. .... His flawless technical skill and extraordinary ear for sonority is matched by a unique musical and theatrical imagination. Though a confirmed modernist, he is not a composer who has constructed or learned a formula and continued to exploit it. Rather he delights in the pursuit of discovery and experiment, and he conveys that delight in works which speak with bold directness and musical clarity."