I started composing at a very young age. And for me, I I really felt I had something to
say. I think I think as a composer, you you do you think? Have I? Have I got something
within myself that I that I've got to say and I, I felt I did. But when I went to university,
it was a kind of period in classical music and choral music where the where the language
was very complex and it wasn't my kind of language, but my language was has always been
a tonal language. I've always had that desire to communicate with singers. So I wanted to
write music that people could sing. It took me to the age of 42 until I actually found
the means to make it work for me. I had to go around in a great big circle to come back
to the place where I I thought I might have been age 25, which I wasn't. Actually, I had
to have that experience of performing and also working with people and seeing how singing
impacts on people's lives. I lived in this bubble of of being in a very, very fine choir.
King's College, Cambridge this, you know, you thought, well, of course everyone sings
like that, you know which they don't. So I had to discover that this this world of of
singing, which actually has become a real mission for me now because I understand that
that sense of what it is that the power that singing can give people. And that's important
to me. I find points of access are very important. How do you draw people into wanting to sing
something? Text is a is a big factor in motivating people to think about ideas. For me, the important
thing about being a composer is to work out the fundamentally, how are you going to get
the music written? And I always say to people, if you want to compose, make sure that you
sit down every day and that you do it. Even if it's just half an hour a day, sit down
and do it every day. Now I sit down for eight hours. Every day I do office hours. I need
to do that every day because the process of the thought processes need that familiarity
of of a time. Some days I find you. I don't write a thing and and I sit there in total
frustration. Other days, I write a lot. So I think the discipline of composing is very
important. The thing that I probably hadn't thought about when I wanted to be a composer
was that how your music you do make yourself very, very vulnerable. There's a beauty in
that. But the same time, it can be very difficult as a creative person in any way. You have
to go through that process of being really comfortable in your own skin with who you
are. And that can be very challenging because at different times in our life, you know,
we all want to be something we're not or we all want to be. You know, I wish I was like
that. And coming to terms with who you are as a creative person is something that is
it's a big journey, actually. It's totally OK to fail and wait. And we live in a society
where failure is not seen as being something positive. I had a beautiful experience recently
where I made a program for the BBC radio about the for a Requiem. I went to the Bibliotheque
Nazionale in Paris with a with a musical historian, and we went to look at the full score of the
love of the fairy requiem. And this beautiful man from the library came in with these five
or six blue folders cardboard folders. And he put them down on this desk with a sketchbook.
He said These are the sketchbooks and we opened the the the skull and there inside was movement
by movement. The full score of the FA Requiem with its side at the beginning and then when
you open, it was probably the first thing you see is something he crossed out or you
saw. That very familiar music with suggestions underneath for how he might rethink it. And
then you see a page with crossing the whole page is crossed out. Now I'm still a person
who writes with pencil and paper. I love it. I love the tactile feel. I've got a fetish
about mechanical pencils, so I've got them all over the world. I love them. And and beautiful
paper. So the tactile feeling of it, it's part of the process for me. One of the biggest
bits advice I've ever given to composers is get away from the machines. Do it think your
head? Piano, if you need and put your thoughts down on paper because it makes you think about
it in a different way. And I think the machines are wonderful and everything, but a music
software has done this. It's been a wonderful gift for composers, but I think it can. It
can slightly take away the process of seeing how you've got there. But we don't see that
process now. And I think that's a pity because failure is how you died and I failed a lot.