Composer and author · Wellington · Sydney
Hello Beautiful People.
I am going to share my stories, as if you were sitting having a coffee with me, and we were old chums. It will be warts and all, with all the serious stuff, sad stuff, humiliating stuff and funny stuff. And if there’s one thing I hope you take from it all, it’s when things turn to custard, like life does, laugh at it. Just to show it who’s boss.
What’s it all about?
I am Andrew Stopps, and I am a man with a story to tell. About how in 2005, I survived a brain tumour that left me deaf in my right ear. Then in 2021, I survived two strokes that left me unable to speak clearly or move my right side. My story is about the human condition and dealing with adversity. You’ll also learn about love, strength, resilience, grief, laughter, embarrassment, humiliation and sheer bloody mindedness.
But before all of that, I am an artist. A composer. An author. And I am Andrew Stopps.
The symphony
I Am
A Symphonic Memoir
A prelude and four movements in A minor that follow my stroke from the inside, written as a companion to my memoir. It begins on an ordinary last day and ends, four movements later, on hope. As the music reaches the stroke, the right side of the orchestra falls silent, the way the right side of my body did.
Writing
The books.
As Far As My Eyes Can See – Coming Soon
I went back to Adelaide to visit my brother. It's the first time going back since mum died. I was so excited about going back, seeing where I grew up, being surrounded by nostalgia, good memories and as soon as we landed I wanted to see everything. It struck me by how much everything had changed. It was like I was experiencing it in time-lapse. No gradual changes, just sudden and jarring differences. My old school and uni friends too. Some of them I hadn't seen in 20 or 30 years and now they looked like their parents. It really hit me hard. …
The Secondary Music Teacher’s Guide
The Secondary Music Teacher's Guide is a practical, plain-language handbook for anyone starting out teaching music in a secondary school. It cuts through the jargon to explain how things actually work, from funding and staffing to the day-to-day decisions of running a music programme. Written for real classrooms rather than theory, it gives new teachers the clear, reliable guidance they need to feel confident from day one.
The Wanderlight Chronicles – Coming Soon
Book 1. The Green Children.
From the Historia Rerum Anglicarum of William of Newburgh, Augustinian Canon of Newburgh Priory, Yorkshire. Written circa 1196–1198.
During the reign of King Stephen, there was found in the county of Suffolk, near the village called Woolpit, from which it takes its name, a boy and a girl, unknown to any man, who had crept forth from the excavations which the people there dig for the catching of wolves. Their whole bodies were of a green colour. Their clothing was fashioned from a material of an unknown kind. Bewildered by the strangeness of what they saw, they wept. They were brought to the house of a certain knight, Richard de Calne, and kept there. They would eat nothing. Though much food was set before them, they refused it all, and for several days grew weak with hunger. …
Better Brains Podcast
Real stories, real strategies.
Listen to young stroke survivors from around the world share their raw, unfiltered experiences, recovery insights, and the sheer determination it takes to rebuild life after stroke.
RNZ Concert Interview
