Roger Marsh studied at the University of York, UK, in the early seventies. He spent two years at the University of California, San Diego, on a Harkness Fellowship. From 1978 to 88 he lectured at the University of Keele, before returning to York where he is now Professor and Head of the Music Department.
His music has been performed and broadcast widely. In 1993 he spent three months as Visiting Composer at Harvard. His orchestral piece Espace was premiered at the Huddersfield Festival in 1994 and his Canto 1 for string ensemble, was premiered there in November 1999. A work for percussion quartet, Sukeroku, was premiered by 'Backbeat' in January 2000, and has been extensively toured by them, including 7 performances in Japan in 2003. In November 2002 the premiere took place, in York, of 'Pierrot Lunaire' - a fully staged realisation of new settings of all 50 of Albert Giraud's moon poems, in French and English. Pierrot Lunaire was also featured at the Aarhus Festival, Denmark in May 2006. The work is available on NMC records. A new work for the Hilliard Ensemble, 'Il Cor Tristo', was premiered in Perugia, Italy in September 2008, and his 'Lullaby' for soprano and marimba was included on the NMC Songbook CD. A new work, 'Waiting for Charlie', for the Dutch ensemble 'de ereprijs', will be premiered in Arnhem on ocotber 29th 2009. Roger Marsh is also known for his abridgements and productions of all the novels of James Joyce for Naxos Audiobooks, including 'Ulysses' - unabridged on 22 CDs - which was nominated for Audiobook of the Year in New York in 2005.