His music has been described as ‘seductive, innovative, full of freshness’ by Henri Dutilleux. It has been performed by the BBC Philharmonic, Rolf Hind, the BBC Singers, Endymion, the Aronowitz Ensemble, Matthew Schellhorn, the Fitzwilliam String Quartet, James Macmillan, Peter Sheppard Skaerved, Sequitur (New York), Lesley-Jane Rogers, Curious Chamber Players Stockholm,  Zoe Martlew, Daniel Propper, Charles Mutter, Kevin Bowyer, Simon Smith and Adrian Bradbury among many others.  In 2007 he won the George Butterworth Award for new composition.

He has made a distinctive contribution to many different fields of contemporary music, from ‘video-opera’ (A Sudden Cartography of Song) for voices, video and electronicswith writer Alastair Appleton), to orchestral music (e.g. Search Engines, for the BBC Philharmonic); music for live performers and electronics; choral music for both professional groups (including a work the BBC Singers) and amateur singers; several contemporary dance scores; ‘fables’ (where the music both plays with and deconstructs the telling of the story; a rich catalogue of chamber music for traditional ensembles (including two works for the Fitzwilliam String Quartet and two piano trios) as well as various highly un-traditional groups; he has worked with instrumentalists from other cultural traditions including those of North India and Korea; he has made extensive explorations of the fertile territory where composition meets improvisation, working especially with Peter Sheppard Skaerved, and the Aronowitz Ensemble; he has set words in Mandarin by cult writer Louis Cha in a cantata premiered in Hong Kong with Niu Niu and Yang Peiyi and recently released by Universal on DVD and CD in China; settings of poetry both English and French (including the Keats setting Unbidden Visions, and Plus avant que l’étoile, a response to Yves Bonnefoy); and theatre work including Vanessa & Virgina (Riverside Studios), for which his score and performance was nominated for the Off-West End Awards 2013.

His book on composer Henri Dutilleux is published in French by Millénaire III, and he has written and broadcast on the music of Messiaen and many other 20th-century composers, frequently appearing on Radio 3′s CD Review. He enjoys playing chamber music and giving solo recitals: recent performances include Dvorak’s Piano Quintet, Winterreise, and a recital of late Fauré Nocturnes, as well as programmes of contemporary composers including Jonathan Harvey, John Casken, Magnus Lindberg and his own music.

Jeremy Thurlow is a Fellow of Robinson College, Cambridge.