Flautist Nancy Ruffer and pianist Dominic Saunders included the first performance of my ‘Sonata Serenata’ in their recital at St John’s Hampstead on Wednesday 1st March. The ‘Serenata’ of the title is slightly ironic as, although the second movement is a rather remote lover’s plea, the last is a jagged toccata – not for playing under windows! A wonderful recording by Aoife ni Raghaill, flute and David Jones, piano can found in Soundcloud.

Multi-award winning violist Timothy Ridout (winner of the Lionel Tertis International Viola Competition 2016, 1st Prize at the 2014 Cecil Aronowitz and Violin Channel Young Artist of the week, July 2016) will be including ‘Urizen’ in his March tour of Scotland supported by the Tunnell Trust. The pianist will be Ke Ma.
8th March – Dundee Chamber Music Society
9th March – Woodend Barn Arts Centre, Banchory
10th March – Dumfries Music Club
11th March – Edinburgh Society of Musicians
12th March – Pollock Arts Society

He will also be including ‘Urizen’ in a lunchtime concert as part of the Brighton Festival with John Reid as accompanist.

What started a long time ago as ’50 Songs for the over 50s’ has now been more realistically subtitled ‘Seven Songs for Grownups’ ! With brilliantly wry, wise and witty words by Alison Rutherford, this is a collection of more-or-less-cabaret songs beginning with ‘Too old to fall in love, too young to believe it’, and ending with ‘… but that was then and this is now’. The title comes from one of the songs:

‘Kiss Me on Wednesday, don’t kiss me now.
Let me anticipate where, when and how.’
…

Following its premiere at Chapel Royal, Brighton, my Clarinet Sonata has had several performances with Steve Dummer (Clarinet) and Yoko Ono (piano). Meanwhile I typeset my Concerto for Clarinet and Strings (written, like the Sonata in the 1970s!) which was given its first performance by Steve Dummer and the Musicians of All Saints.
More recent (2016) for clarinet (+ ‘cello and piano) is the 3 movement ‘In Touch’: ‘Touching In’, ‘Don’t Touch’ and ‘Touch and Go’ which was also premiered by Steve Dummer with players from Talkestra.

The Sonata has now been recorded, with much of my other clarinet music – including the trio and the concerto, on the ‘Simplicius’ CD

On the 20th February in Kingston will be the first performances of an extraordinary dual commission: myself and Cecilia McDowall setting the same poem. The poem, ‘The Silk Road’ by Sarah Pope,  was commissioned, like the music, by violist and music publisher John Harding in memory of his sister. John worked for many years in China for the BBC – hence the Silk Road connection. The settings are for voice with violin, viola, ‘cello and piano.

On 1st March my ‘Sonata Serenata’ (1988) for flute and piano gets its premiere at St John’s Hampstead in a lunchtime concert given by Nancy Ruffer (flute) and Dominic Saunders (piano). Like the Clarinet Sonata, which was premiered last year, this piece has had to wait for its first outing but couldn’t have a more distinguished soloist!