Just finished rewriting ‘The Seafarer’, the last and only unperformed one of my trilogy of sea pieces (‘Sea Symphony’, ‘Voices from the Sea’). This large-scale piece is for tenor, choir and chamber orchestra and uses words from the Anglo-Saxon poem ‘The Seafarer’ and a powerful short story by the great Liverpool seaman, poet, actor and political activist George Garrett.

My first string quartet (written in 1976) has just appeared on YouTube in a video made earlier this year.

More recently I wrote ‘Fuzon’ for string quartet which is also on YouTube

‘At Two’, a challenging piece for two violas in two movements (naturally), gets its first performance at June 14th’s lunchtime concert at St Olave’s Church, Hart Street, London. It will be played by Peter Mallinson and Matthias Wiesner who commissioned it and who are recording it for their second CD with Meridian Records the next day. The title comes from Woody Allen’s famous jibe ‘I am at two with nature’.  Peter and Matthias’s exciting first CD ‘Music for Two Violas’ is Meridian’s CDE84641.
There will another performance at their lunchtime recital on Monday 9th July as part of the Buckingham Festival.
See ‘At Two’ now published by Comus Edition.

Sadly, on June 17th the wonderful Duruflé Trio is giving its final concert. It will include my ‘Romantique’ for flute, viola and piano together with pieces by William Alwyn, Arnold Bax, CPE Bach and seven composers from New Music Brighton. The concert will be at St Luke’s church at 5.00 pm.

Tickets here https://bit.ly/2IQ2ikC

Just finished a short piece for clarinet and string orchestra (or piano) based on the extraordinary Adventures of Simplicius Simplicissimus, the 17th-century story of a young boy travelling through a world ravaged by the Thirty Years’ War and the appalling things he both sees and does ‘… in the end, contrite and fully tired of a world wasting itself in blood, pillage and lust’ (Thomas Mann).
A vivid new translation by J. A. Underwood has just been published by Penguin.