Biography
Job title: Head of Postgraduate Studies
Courses taught: MA Music
Specialisms: Songwriting, Production, Performance
Professor Andrew West has been a professional musician since 1990, when he joined Hugh Cornwell (The Stranglers) and Roger Cook (Blue Mink) to form the eclectic trio Cornwell, Cook and West.
Professor Doctor Andrew West has been a professional musician since 1990, when he joined Hugh Cornwell (The Stranglers) and Roger Cook (Blue Mink) to form the eclectic trio Cornwell, Cook and West. The trio released an album ‘CCW’, and toured the UK and Europe. Over the past three decades more than 350 of Andy’s songs have been published. His songs have been used in film and on TV in over 40 countries, and feature in the Grammy winning shows ‘Heroes’, ‘Lost’ and ‘True Blood’.
Whilst resident in Nashville between 1997 and 2003, Andy performed live and recorded his songs with Ian Wallace, Garry Tallent, Kenny Vaughan, Willie Weeks and Chad Cromwell, musicians better known for their work with Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen, Lucinda Williams, David Bowie and Neil Young. He released a solo album ‘Sundays and Birthdays’ on the US based Infinity Cat label and produced Julie Lee’s ‘Stillhouse Road’, an album featuring Grammy winning vocalists Alison Krauss and Vince Gill.
Between 2006 and 2011, Andy designed and course directed the world’s first Masters’ degree in Songwriting. His first book ‘The Art of Songwriting’ was published by Bloomsbury in 2016 and a second book ‘Paul Weller and Popular Music’ was published by Routledge in 2022. A regular speaker at local, national and international conferences, Andy has taught Songwriting as a guest at Conservatorium van Amsterdam; The Danish National Academy of Music; The Royal Danish Academy of Music; RMC Copenhagen; St. Louis College of Music in Rome; Mannheim Popakademie; The Norwegian Academy of Music; The University of Agder and at Codarts in Rotterdam.
A Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy, Andy was previously External Examiner at The Institute of Contemporary Music Performance in London and is currently External Examiner at the London College of Creative Media. In 2022, Andy was appointed as a member of the Association of European Conservatoires (AEC) Lifelong Learning Working Group as part of the ‘Empowering Artists as Makers in Society’ project.
