Last modified on Tue 13 Apr 2021 07.50 EDT The composer Simon Bainbridge, who has died aged 68 after a long period of ill health, responded deeply to the visual arts and poetry in a way that informed a musical style of impressive technical assurance and originality. Time spent studying with Gunther Schuller at the Berkshire Music Center at Tanglewood, Massachusetts (1973-74), opened his ears to jazz and what Schuller termed third stream music, a fusion of jazz and classical. But despite the absorption of jazz influences such as big band and Miles Davis into his style, his compositions remained intellectually challenging, often austere. A flirtation with the minimalism of the American composers Steve Reich and Philip Glass, for example, failed to develop into a closer relationship, Bainbridge finding it limiting both harmonically and rhythmically.