19 September
Writing from a coffee place at Cologne airport, I am waiting to catch a plane to Hamburg for a concert with the incredibly dynamic young German Ensemble Resonanz. We played in a fantastic baroque residence, Schloss Auguststein, last night, in an almost surreal setting of an original huge baroque staircase, placed on several levels, performing music from Bach to John Adams. Tonight's programme is different though - so we have an important dress rehearsal to go to straight from the airport: the madness has started all over again. I've been to Derby earlier this month already for workshops with the Orchestra testing promising material for the sinfonia ViVA 'Orchestral Shorts' series and I'm looking forward to go to Norway, Holland and Sweden in the next three weeks. Thankfully there will be week at home before I come back to Derby to start our exciting autumn season with the much anticipated Uri Caine Tour in October.
1 August
I am on holiday with my family, in Germany. As ever, there's so much to discover in your own country and we prefer, with small children, not to go too far away for convenience and being able to use all the time we have for relaxation and quality time rather than travelling long and settling into more exotic places. Also, this year is the first summer for a long time that I didn't have to take a number of scores with me to study in the evenings - vital to give my musical brain a moment to breathe once in a while.
26 July
Monkey Journey to the West has opened successfully in London a couple of days ago after an incredibly short rehearsal period, thanks to a wonderful and huge team of administrators, technicians, musicians and performers (more than 50 Chinese actors, singers and acrobats) who have already three runs of this work in different countries and continents even under their belt. This morning I have two meetings before a two o'clock matinee show: One is at the British Library with Peter Helps and Jon Ashford-Smith of sinfonia ViVA and my manager Anna Wetherell, and with Simon Millward of Albion Media, who has started working for us as publicist, joining a little later. All current and future undertakings with ViVA are being discussed: programming, commissioning, strategic planning in general and publicity. With Simon we talk a lot about the superior importance of being well represented on the web nowadays, and that's not just about a good homepage but other appearances like in 'Myspace' for example. We hope that as soon as the first few of our Orchestral Shorts commissions are ready we will record some and stream them live on the net! After this very constructive session I hurry back to Covent Garden for the next meeting: Graham McKenzie, Artistic Director of the Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival, listens with great interest to our current and future plans before attending the matinee performance of Monkey for which I have just enough time left to get changed and make my way to the pit - a manic but very productive day so far!
22 July
Between rehearsals at the Royal Opera House the director of Monkey, Chen Shi-Zheng, Damon Albarn and myself are driven to the BBC to appear live on In Tune with Sean Rafferty. Damon's first time on this particular programme as he is a novice in the classical department in general but he is an incredible personality and takes over immediately wording his statements very sensibly but forcefully. I hardly get a word in but there's not much to add anyway and we happily drive back to put the finishing touches on the show.
1 July
I'm enjoying a couple of weeks off, at home in Berlin. This is due to the cancellation of Damon Albarn's circus/martial-arts opera Monkey - Journey to the West by the Staatsoper Unter den Linden Berlin, for technical reasons. The show was supposed to be rehearsed and performed from today - instead we are going to take it to the Royal Opera House in Covent Garden later this month!