After embarking accidentally on his career, Pappenheim has created innovative soundscapes for theatre, opera and radio

Max Pappenheim’s journey into sound design comprises a series of happy accidents. Music – and especially organ music – was his first love. He spent a year as a cathedral organist and it was only his predilection for experimentation and finding “the weirdest corners of the repertoire” that stopped him from pursuing a professional career in liturgical music.

Instead, he went to Cambridge University, read classics and began teaching at a school in the Midlands. There, he was asked to direct a musical, Sweeney Todd, and it was then the ground began to shift beneath his feet.