Aidan was born in Australia and was raised in his parents’ restaurant in Sydney before moving to Scotland at age 4. Aidan began learning music on his fluorescent green recorder at age 6 and then went on to learn the saxophone, piano and double bass, all of which he performed on as a student at the Junior Royal Conservatoire of Scotland. It was here where he came to realise he preferred writing music than playing it and began learning to compose with Audrey McPherson which he then pursued into studying at the RCS with Dr Gordon McPherson and Dr William Sweeney.

Aidan has worked with organisations including the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, the Scottish Chamber Orchestra, Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra, the Glasgow Barons Orchestra, RCS MusicLab, the Glasgow New Music Expedition, the Hebrides Ensemble , the Brodick Quartet, The Edinburgh Quartet, The Ear (New York), was an associate member of the LSO’s SoundHub scheme (2017/19), and has worked with world-renowned performers Sinae Lee, Pascal Gallois, Yann Ghiro, traditional singer/songwriter Ainsley Hamill, and conductor Jessica Cottis.

Aidan is also the founder and artistic director for the new music group, The Hadit Collective, focussing on the 5% of contemporary repertoire that isn’t terrible.

Collaboration is an essential part of Aidan’s artistic practice, with him maintaining a continuing working relationship with the filmmaker Adam Castle, a number of collaborations with Contemporary Performers (the most significant being the dragified performance of his piece, “How To Own The Room”) and working alongside students from the Glasgow School or Art, Glasgow University and the RCS in creating the piece “Last Futures” with the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra.

Aidan has also worked as the Vice President of the RCS Student Union, organising and helping in the running of Freshers Week, RCS’ Winter Ball, LGBT History Month events and RCS’ Summer Ball as well as representing the student body on the RCS’ academic board, board of governors, Equality and Diversity committee and the Quality and Standards committee, and as a member of the Glasgow Student Forum.

Some of Aidan’s past project’s include being the Composer/Musical Director for the show “Babes In The Woods: From Power To Pie” by Kieran McMath, performed at Into The New 2017, composer/songwriter for the musical film “Entertainment” directed by Adam Castle, the writer/performer of his talk “Why Can’t Bach Wear Mascara?”, looking at the absence of drag within classical music and how it may be implemented, and the creation of a ‘dragified’ performance of his piece, “How to Own the Room” for Wind Orchestra (performed by RCS MusicLab and conducted by Raffaelle de Giacometti).

Current projects include writing a series of Site-Specific works about particular areas in Glasgow, a new collaboration with the Campus Trio, and further concerts with the Hadit Collective.

Aidan graduated from the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland with a First-Class Honours degree and the winner of the Patrons Fund Prize (Royal College of Music) in Composition in 2018 and the Craig Armstrong Prize for 2018/19. Aidan is the recipient of two Dewar Arts Awards, two Scottish International Education Trust bursaries, a Cross Trust bursary and a scholarship from the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland in order to continue his studies at a postgraduate level.

Aidan is interested in drag, identity and pop culture.