John studied piano with Philip Challis and Alexander Kelly, oboe with James Hunt (Bournemouth Sinfonietta) and Janella Scialla and organ with Noel Clarke, James Lancelot, Neil Cox and Nicolas Kynaston. John gained his FRCO in 1985.
Concerto performances include Rakhmaninov’s Second Piano Concerto, Beethoven's First Piano Concerto and the organ part in Saint-Saens Organ Symphony. He has played the Royal Festival Hall organ on a number of occasions for YMSO including performances of Berlioz's Te Deum and Richard Strauss's Festival Prelude. He was a prize-winner at the British Music Society piano competition in 1988 perfoming the Frank Bridge Piano Sonata, Sorabji's "In the Hothouse" and the Four Romantic pieces by Alan Rawsthorne. He played harmonium and organ for John Eliot Gardiner's award-winning Grainger CD as well as for the world premiere of Kurtag's "Songs on Despair and Sorrow" in the Concergebouw.