Rowland studied Composition and piano at the Royal School of Music.  His career as a composer, arranger and conductor encompasses the worlds of TV, theatre, ballet and concert music.  For the choreographer Sir Matthew Bourne, Rowland re-orchestrated Swan Lake, now the world's most performed dance production, which recieved its 30th anniversary tour in 2024 and was in production at Sadler's Wells Theatre, London.  

Rowland's Requiem, published by Edition Peters, has been performed in Sacramento, St.Petersburg and many places in between:and will be performed by Sleaford Choral in April 2025. Among his 700-plus TV composer credits, he is probably best known for the children's series Cloudbabies, 64 Zoo Lane and Engie Benjy, although he also orchestrated most of seasons V and VI of Endeavour, and has worked as arranger and orchestrator on many other programmes.  

In 1986, he was the first recipient of the British Film Institute's Anthony Asquith Young Composer Award (now a BAFTA) and he was one of the judge's for the 2023 Ivor Novello Awards.  

Rowland is proud to have been associated with the Sleaford Choral Society, firstly as an accompanist and now its Musical Director and conductor, for more than 15 years.


OTHER INTERESTS
Rowland both collects and restores player pianos and reed organs, reproducing pianos and associated instruments and he is the committee chair of the Player Piano Group of Great Britain.  He is a passionate student of architecture of all periods, with special interest in that of the nineteenth and early twentienth centuries, being a former voluntary case worker for the Victorian Society.

Rowland is also a scholar of the life and works of the composer Erich Wolfgang Korngold, and an author of a dissertation on this subject, published in 1983.  He is also co-author of the programme note for the British premiere of Korngold’s opera, “Die Tote Stadt” at the South Bank Centre, performed in 1998.