Ian Bradley

Ian Bradley is Principal of St Mary's College, Reader in Church history and Practical Theology at St Andrews University and a minister of the Church of Scotland. The author of more than 40 books, he has a life-long fascination with spas and has written, lectured and broadcast on their cultural, historical, medical and spiritual significance.  He is the author of Water Music: Music Making in the Spas of Europe and North America (Oxford University Press, 2010) and Water:A Spiritual History (Bloomsbury, 2012). He has made documentary programmes about spas for BBC Radio 4 and BBC Radio 3. He is particularly interested in the connection between music and spas and is a frequent visitor to and lecturer at operetta festivals in the spas of Europe. A leading world authority on Gilbert & Sullivan, he is Vice President of both the Sullivan and Stainer societies, a member of the International Gilbert and Sullivan Hall of Fame, and Honorary Life President of the St Andrews University Gilbert and Sullivan Society, with whom he has performed many principal bass-baritone roles. If he is spared long enough, he has hopes of writing the definitive spa novel.