I went to Tenbury at the age of nine.  It was a little choir school founded in the nineteenth century by a professor of music at Oxford University to educate young boys in music and church music […]

One moment I can remember particularly is turning the corner, coming out of the service to go into the cloisters but still in the church; the organist improvising, playing extremely loudly, full organ, hitting a chord.  I used to love his improvisations because I found them more modern – just a hint of chaos – than anything we ever encountered in our singing.  And in this particular improvisation – I can’t remember the chord any more – there was a moment of great epiphany and I knew that I would always be a composer.  And somehow I remembered that for a year, for two years, for ten years, for twenty years, for forty years.  It is still clear in my mind.