Paul Ellison is a native of Liverpool, England, where he was born in 1956. He grew up in Surrey, and was educated at the Royal Academy of Music in London, studying organ with Christopher Bowers-Broadbent and gaining the Recital Diploma for Organ Performance (DipRAM); London University where he was awarded a BMus degree; Queens' College, Cambridge; San José State University, where he took an MA in musicology; and Cardiff University, where he holds a PhD degree, awarded for his thesis: “The Key to Beethoven: Connecting Tonality and Meaning in His Music”.

During his time in London, Paul was Assistant Organist at St. Pancras' Church near Euston Station, and at St. Mary-at-Hill Church in the City of London, and Director of Music and Organist at St. Mary's Church, The Boltons, in London's fashionable Chelsea. He emigrated to the United States in August 1988, and is currently High Holiday Choir Director at Congregation Beth Am in Los Altos Hills, and a member of the faculties of San Francisco State University and St. Matthew's Episcopal Day School, San Mateo. He has taught at San José State University and has been Assistant Editor of The Beethoven Journal, the periodical of the American Beethoven Society since 2000, and Associate Editor since 2010. In that summer, he was appointed editor of the Journal of the association of Anglican Musicians.

Among the interesting highlights of his career Paul has performed for HRH The Prince Charles at Trinity College, Cambridge, directed the music at the weddings of actor Julian Sands and director Michael Attenborough and funerals of British actor Leonard Rossiter and the Marquesa de Casa Maury (Freda Dudley Ward, sometime mistress of King Edward VIII).