I am Stephen Harker.
I live and work in London but I was born, grew up and lived in New Zealand for the first thirty or so years of my life.
In my twenties I was a professional musician, mainly as a free-lance percussionist playing with the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra, Auckland Philharmonia, Orchestra Wellington and others. I was also a founder member of the Strike! percussion ensemble and regularly played with other groups, worked as a session musician, played in ad-hoc ensembles for opera and ballet throughout the country. I even got to play with the NZSO in the Sydney Opera House as part of the 2000 Sydney Olympic Games!
In 2001 I moved to the UK and undertook a change in career, concentrating on my other big interests in life – technology, electronics, computers, networks and the Internet. However I continue playing percussion and timpani with orchestras in and around London, playing drums in different bands and generally enjoying playing music for the love of it.
A constant through all of this has been Mike Oldfield’s music, which I first heard consciously when Moonlight Shadow was on the radio in 1983 and have been discovering it all ever since!