Born in 1969 in Limassol, he emigrated with his family to Great Britain after Cyprus’ military occupation in 1975. After travelling for a year with his violin in the Near East, learning traditional music, he returned to England to study musicology at the University of York. Fascinated by the music of Louis Andriessen, he moved to the Netherlands to study with the composer. At that time he also had the inspiring opportunity to collaborate on three projects with the conceptual sound artist Dick Raaijmaakers and the director Paul Koek. He currently lives in Amsterdam and teaches composition at the Royal Conservatoire in The Hague. He is the artistic director of Ensemble MAE and regularly cooperates with many other ensembles including ASKO, Icebreaker, and Ensemble Intégrales. He is also involved in the Amsterdam electronic improvisation scene. In 2000, he received the Gaudeamus Award for conSPIracy cantata, called by The Wire magazine as a “classic in the making”. Wordless (12 electronic portraits for headphones and speakers) was awarded an honorary prize at the Prix Ars Electronica 2006. Together with Andy Moor and Isabelle Vigier, he runs the Unsounds label for new electronic and improvised music.

As a composer he strives to create new forms and hybrids of media, synthesizing disparate sound sources and exploring spatial and temporal experience. In most of his works he has focused on ways of combining traditional performance practice with digital media. He is particularly interested in the sensory space of music and looks for ways of avoiding conventional structures of its representation. The question of what music communicates in reality is also a recurring theme of his work, and he is drawn to explore the relation between language and emotion in music and how this relation defines our experience of music. He has composed over 70 works as well as incidental music for film, theatre and ballet.

Two of his sound installations have been presented in the Dutch pavilion during the 2011 Venice Biennale. He was the main composer of the Huddersfield Festival in 2007 and was featured composer of the November Music Festival in s’Hertogenbosch in 2011.

His music appeared on ten CDs, the latest of which, Antichamber, received the Quartz Electronic Music Award in 2011. His composition Paramyth received the 1st Prize at the Toonzetters in Amsterdam (2011).

Selected works (since 2005): rising for wind ensemble (2005), u for 8-part choir and sine oscillator (2005), simplex for ensemble and video (2005), escamotage, chamber electronic opera (2005), dead cat / live cat for two Renaissance bass flutes, two random soundtracks and electronic drone (2005), legerdemain for piano and electronics (2005), rebetika, for electric guitar and electronics, suite of soundtracks for improvisation based on rebetika tunes from the 1920s and 1930s (2005), paperdelic, soundtrack for installation (2006), dog song (Cerberus serenades Orpheus) for trumpet and electronics (2006), the queen is the supreme power in the realm for ensemble, video and live electronics (2006), mnemonist S. for ensemble, electronics, voice and narrator (2006), music in a foreign language, electronic surround sound piece (2006), dreams of the blind for ensemble, video and electronics (2006), iridia for electronics, soundtrack for an installation by Elizabeth Presa (2006), flock for flute and electronics (2006), sophoclean for voice and electronics (2006), an ocean of rain has fallen behind my eyes, opera to a libretto by Daniel Danis (2007), dense set for big band (2007), the phaistos disk for cello and two percussions (2007), wiretap for ensemble and live electronics (2007), for A., song cycle to words by Ayelet Harpaz (2007), copy machine for violin, double bass and live electronics (2007), scam spam for violin, electronics and video text (2009), discophaisto, trio for recorder, viola da gamba, harpsichord and drum machine (2010), satellites for ensemble and electronics (2010), memoryscape for ensemble, electronics and video text (2010), RE: mad masters for violin, soundtrack, live electronics and video text, after Jean Rouch’s film Les maîtres fous (2010), ascent for ensemble, organ and soundtrack (2010), Paramyth for violin, clarinet, piano and computer (2010), Varosha, multitrack soundtrack (2010), circadian surveillance for percussion and two computers (2010), the trojan light for ensemble, soundtrack and video (2011), karaoke etudes for ensemble, soundtrack and video score (2011), covertures, sound installation, (2011), politicus, 12-hour installation for prepared disklavier (2011), wavespace for ensemble, electronics and video (with Joost Rekveld, 2011), speaking tubes, sound installation (2012), the world feels pressure for three voices, bass clarinet and live electronics (2012), beatrice and the nightingale for cello (2012), norms of transposition (citizenship), interactive installation (2012), nerve for orchestra, video and electronics (2012), the 100 words for 8-channel tape (2012), hypothetical islands for oboe, clarinet, alto saxophone, bassoon, bass clarinet and electronics (2012), Dodona, audiovisual installation (2013), God Good Luck for piano, bass guitar, percussion, three guitars and live electronics (2013), music for viola (2013), walls have ears for mezzo-soprano and string quartet, to words by Mahmet Yahsin (2013), Naked Lunch for three male voices and three percussionists (2013).