This week, Britain has lost a fine musician; one of our leading avant-garde composers and lesser-sung heroes. A man who rejected all ideas of fame, fashion and fortune in favour of what truly mattered: his art.

After a short illness, David Bedford passed away on Saturday, October 1, aged 74.

In his lifetime, David has built up a large and impressive portfolio of work; his own original work as a composer and musician, collaborations with others and his work as an arranger. He nurtured the compositional skills of Mike Oldfield back in the seventies, spun countless albums of beautiful, haunting, uplifting, evocative music - melodies which will linger in my mind until I, too, die. He was the keyboard in Kevin Ayers' Whole World - a true artist whose accomplishments span decades.

It was his album 'The Rime of the Ancient Mariner' that inspired my A2 art project; kept inspiring me as I saw it through to get an A and a B. I genuinely don't think the project would have been as interesting or easy without that album - his thoughts translated into keystrokes and trembling strings - in my ears.

Rest in peace, David. I'll keep discovering your music; the fans will always have that, but your family and friends have lost a great man.