FROM chemical engineer to full time classical composer at the age of 54 – in June of 2002 we told the tale of a remarkable transformation.

Visitors to the scoreexchange.com website, where composers show off their wares for orchestras, groups choirs and individual musicians, can hear several pieces by Richard Wilkins.

Particularly exquisite are his Little Music for String Trio, written for the Cotswold Ensemble, and his String Quartet No 1, which was written for participants in a chamber music course.

He has also had choral works performed by groups including Marlborough Choral Society.

We interviewed him 13 years ago when he experienced the first major triumph in any composer’s career:

“Self-taught musician and composer Richard Wilkins is about to achieve one of his lifelong ambitions – watching a piece of his music performed for the first time.

“Richard, who lives in Blunsdon St Andrew, near Swindon, will be attending the first performance of his Viola Concerto at a concert in Leicester.

“The 54-year-old worked for a petrochemical firm in Reading before taking early retirement this year so he could spend more time developing new scores.”

Richard told us: “It is extremely time-consuming. I use the old traditional method of pencil, paper and rubber, and if you can only spend a few hours a week on a piece it takes so long to put it together.

“By taking early retirement I can now devote more time to producing more music.”

Richard, originally from Walsall in the West Midlands, was a chorister as a boy and learned the cello in his teens.

At Sheffield University he studied chemical, engineering but haunted the music department. Moving to the Swindon area in the early 1970s, he lived first in Wootton Bassett and then Old Town, before moving to Blunsdon St Andrew. According to his scoreexchange.com entry, he now lives in Oxfordshire.

He said: “I really used to enjoy my engineering job, but every so often my colleagues would catch me staring out of the window as I thought about musical composition.

“As a composer, you are always thinking about new ideas. Writing for the viola is probably one of the most difficult, as it is not a powerful instrument compared to a violin or cello.”