Luke was educated at a comprehensive school in West Wales before studying music at the University of Salford. As an electric guitarist, he initially moved for the music department’s expertise in pop and jazz music but classical composition became his focus through studies under composer Joe Duddell. From there he moved to Merton College, Oxford to study for the MSt and subsequently received a full AHRC award to work on a DPhil under the supervision of Robert Saxton and Jonathan Cross at Christ Church. He also spent a year studying composition and orchestration with Hans Abrahamsen at the Royal Danish Academy of Music, Copenhagen.

Teaching

Luke teaches undergraduates primarily in Composition, Techniques of Composition, Orchestration and Music Analysis and also dissertations concerning twentieth century music.

Research Interests

Luke’s music has been performed internationally by groups including the BBC National Orchestra of Wales, Athelas Sinfonietta, Esbjerg Ensemble, and Orkest de Ereprijs. His main compositional preoccupations are around the formal and structural connections between music and text, an increasing interest in computer-aided methods of transcription and composition, and anything that might disrupt received notions of genre. 

Alongside this, he is a busy arranger/orchestrator in the popular music world. Most recently, he arranged and conducted a sold-out concert at the Sheldonian Theatre, Oxford with Supergrass frontman Gaz Coombes and an orchestra and has worked on projects with the Grammy Award winning group Clean Bandit, Jane Weaver, Palace and Richard Walters amongst many others in collaboration with groups such as the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra, London Symphony Orchestra and Festival No. 6 Ensemble. 

Upcoming projects include writing for the London Sinfonietta, the Stakla Quartet, arranging strings/winds for a few pop bands, and making a performing edition of Galuppi's La Diavolessa for performance by New Chamber Opera. 

In terms of written work, he is continuing to develop his doctoral research that considered the composer Steve Martland (1954-2013) and how politics, class, genre, sexuality and notions of 'Englishness' played out, and indeed developed, in his music and operation as a composer. 

More up to date news can be found on Luke’s website.