An anniversary

On Friday 6th May 1988, when I had just turned sixteen, I made my way to the Purcell Room at the South Bank Centre, London, for my first ever professional performance. The occasion was a workshop led by George Benjamin and David Bedford, and the players were the London Sinfonietta. My mentor Michael Finnissy was in the audience, as were family members. I also remember Gillian Moore looking distinctly gothic! Cellist Lionel Handy played a ferociously difficult passage for cello solo superlatively, and the experience overall was one of great joy. I intend to find the score to ‘Variations I’, which is in a box somewhere among my belongings, to see if it is any good. I remember it has Boulezian characteristics, despite a fake-minimalist beginning. I think that even then my musical personality was incipiently there: the jokes, the virtuosity, the energy…