Conductors tend to be focused strongly on their own areas of musical activity, with just a few also becoming active as instrumental soloists. Veteran British conductor Alan Tongue (apparently no relation to the footballer of the same name), by contrast, has had a varied career that has included musicology, the writing of prose books, and television music production.

Tongue was born in the city of Bath and attended Kingswood School there. His family was musical -- his father sang and his mother played the piano -- and at school his music teacher allowed him to conduct, confirming his future choice of career. Tongue went on to study conducting with Sergiu Celibidache at a summer school in Siena, Italy, and later during master classes given by the latter in Britain, and Tongue has emphasized Celibidache's role in shaping his own style and activities. Beginning in the mid-1970s Tongue worked as a television producer, contributing and organizing music for some 150 programs.

The author of two books on Irish songwriter Percy French, Tongue has written several other books including a conducting text, Beat It (as of 2018 it was undergoing testing in American universities), and a study of the Irish harper and composer O'Carolan.

Tongue discovered a new work by Ralph Vaughan Williams, A Cambridge Mass, in 2007 in the University Library at Cambridge. The work was written out in manuscript as part of the composer's Doctor of Music exams at Cambridge. Tongue transcribed it and has led performances by various organizations. Around the same time in the library he found works by other British composers of the same period, including Charles Wood, George John Bennett, and Walford Davies. He has transcribed and edited several of these, and as of 2018 was at work on Ralph Dunstan's The Wreck of the Hesperus.

Having conducted a wide variety of orchestras internationally, Tongue began his recording career with the Albion label, which issued his recording of A Cambridge Mass with the New Queen's Hall Orchestra and the Bach Choir in 2014. More recordings on Albion followed; the year 2018 saw the release of Beyond My Dreams - Music for Greek Plays. Tongue plans further entries in an Albion series designed to "explore some highways and byways of English music." ~ James Manheim, Rovi