Martin studied music at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland and, specialising in composition, studied with, amongst others, the current Master of the King’s Music, Dame Judith Weir, and an Honorary Fellow of St Edmund’s, Sir James MacMillan. Following complaints from his teachers at the Conservatoire that he ‘thought too much’, his studies took a marked turn towards the intellectual side of the Arts: his Masters at Edinburgh University concerned the historiography of Michel Foucault and his PhD, at Wolfson College Cambridge, was on the aesthetic philosophy of Theodor Adorno.

He held a postdoctoral post at the University of East Anglia, and a Lectureship at the School of Culture and Creative Arts at the University of Glasgow. At Cambridge he been College Teaching Associate at St John’s and Sidney Sussex Colleges, a Bye-Fellow in Music at Fitzwilliam, and is also a Panel Tutor in Philosophy for the Institute of Continuing Education at Madingley. Staying in the tradition of thinking too much, his current research arises from his unhealthy and obsessional interest in the late work of Ludwig Wittgenstein.

Martin Parker Dixon’s acquaintance with St Edmund’s began in 2018 when he took up the role of Director of Studies in Music. He is now also DoS for the Foundation Year and Deputy Admissions Tutor.