Stephen Johnson studied at the Northern School of Music, Manchester, at Leeds University under Alexander Goehr, then at Manchester University. Since then he has written regularly for The Independent and The Guardian, and was Chief Music Critic of The Scotsman (1998–9). He has also broadcast frequently for BBC Radios 3 and 4 and for the BBC World Service, including a series of fourteen programmes about the music of Bruckner for the centenary of the composer’s death (1996). He is the author of Bruckner Remembered (Faber 1998), Wagner: His Life and Music and Mahler: His Life and Music (Naxos Books, 2006, 2007), a contributor to The Cambridge Companion to Conducting (CUP 2004), and a regular presenter for Radio 3’s Discovering Music. In 2003 Stephen was voted Amazon.com Classical Music Writer of the Year.