Born in France to British parents, Anthony Mudge was brought up amongst music-lovers and first came to choral singing at school in East Anglia. A composer since his teens, his early works - culminating in his first symphony - were very much in the Classical vein, with the undeniable influence of Stanford coming to bear on his first choral piece, a Nunc dimittis. He now considers himself a neoclassicist in the French vein (with an occasional touch of Bruckner) and is fully reconciled to the dominance of choral works in his output.

Latin motets remain a particular favourite of his - bolstered by his recent discovery of the richness of the Gregorian tradition - though he does occasionally compose larger scale works such as Beati qui lugent (a sequence intended for the comfort of the bereaved) or The prodigal son, a cantata. His first piece of Christmas music, O magnum mysterium, was published by Shorter House in 2010 and released on the CD Sleep, holy Babe the following year.

His music has been performed across the UK, including in Norwich and Ripon cathedrals, Paisley Abbey, St Giles-in-the-Fields (London) and, in his home town of Edinburgh, the Usher Hall and Scottish National Portrait Gallery as well as the churches of St John's and Old St Paul's.

Long interested in creative writing, Mudge published his novella A Highland mystery in 2014. A tribute to the Golden Age of crime fiction, it is the first in a planned trilogy featuring the amateur detective James Wildgoose. The second volume, entitled Exit, pursued by a bear, is due out in late 2015.

Current projects include further explorations into Gregorian chant and The ten virgins, a second parable cantata. In the longer term, he plans to compose a complete set of canticles for use in the Anglican church, of which the Te Deum, Jubilate and a set of preces and responses have so far been written.

He has also written a small number of piano pieces, some chamber music and harbours ambitions to compose a third symphony, a work he is happy to leave to gestate in its own time. He lives in Edinburgh.