I feel that I spent most of last week organising various things, although I did manage to spend a little time getting on with the symphony, which was a small oasis of creativity in a landscape of other endeavours. I also restored most of the website and tidied up a few bits of code after the hosting went down. It was one of those things that I possibly should have known about, but it would have been good to have been warned.

Still, I try to make a virtue out of necessity, so I am going to upload some more scores and make sure that a wider selection of my music is available for download. I am never quite sure how much of a difference it actually makes, but I take the point of view that it is better to have something out there which might be ignored than not to have something out there which people might want.

We performed the Missa Clemens on Sunday morning at Christ Church, accompanied on the organ rather than the piano (for which it was written) and it sounded pretty good. The singers seemed to enjoy it, as did the congregation, and there were several positive comments afterwards. This is the piece that I once heard somebody else playing and could not quite place, but found impressive, so there might be something in it. We also uncovered a misprint (which I have corrected) so it was a doubly useful morning.

Most of the organisational matters last week were to do with the Occam Singers, mainly to do with our upcoming concert of Brahms, Schubert and Elgar in Guildford on 4th Match (please come!), but also because, having just taken over as MD, I really want to be across (people say they are ‘across’ things these days, don’t they?) as many things as possible so that the choir can be ready to move forwards as strongly as possible after the ravages of the pandemic. It is a great group of singers and we are producing a wonderful sound, so it promises to be a really delightful evening.

The third prong of my current triumchorate is Parliament Choir, of course, and we continue our very exciting preparations for The Dream Of Gerontius in Rome in April, and last week I felt that we uncovered the music behind a couple of areas that we had previously approached as notes. It is a fantastic feeling when that happens, and one of the most magical moments in combined music-making, and my intention this week is to get some new notes of my own written which somebody somewhere might just think have some music hidden behind them.

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