Update 2026

This year brought my eightieth birthday and a welcome opportunity to celebrate through music, friendship and collaboration. After the difficulties of recent years, I am especially grateful to the musicians, organisers and audiences who have continued to support my work.

The heart of the celebrations was an August tour by the Nantwen Ensemble with harpist Alis Huws. Beginning at the National Eisteddfod in Pembrokeshire on 6 August, the tour continued to Peppers in Fishguard on 7 August, All Saints’ Church, Cellan, for Lampeter Music Club on 8 August, and St Illtud’s Church, Llantwit Major, on 9 August. These concerts brought together music written at different stages of my life, in places with which I have longstanding connections.

The programmes included Songs Without Words, Castell Dolbadarn, Paths of Song and Mapping Wales, with Ynys Las also featuring at Fishguard with pianist David Pepper. It was particularly fitting that Mapping Wales should return to Lampeter Music Club, which commissioned the work to mark the millennium. There was also a welcome continuity in Nantwen’s involvement: Songs Without Words, commissioned by Nantwen with support from Tŷ Cerdd, received its first performance at their chamber music festival in 2023.

The celebrations continued in September at the Cowbridge Music Festival, where the Choir of King’s College London, conducted by Joseph Fort, performed my music in a concert marking my eightieth birthday. On 7 October, the Berkeley Ensemble performed my Octet at Malmesbury Abbey alongside Schubert’s Octet—a particularly fitting pairing, since Schubert’s work was one of the inspirations for my own.

Across the Atlantic, baritone Jeremy Huw Williams and pianist Fifi Zhang performed my Auden Songs in New York City on 3 October, as part of the White Street Concert Series. I was delighted to hear from Jeremy that the songs had been very well received. I am deeply grateful to both musicians for the care they brought to preparing the work and for sharing it with an American audience.

Tŷ Cerdd also marked the anniversary with a special focus on my music, including a listener’s guide and an extended interview. Our conversation ranged from my first attempts at composition to the development of my musical language, the musical life of Wales and my hopes for the future. It offered a chance to reflect on the people and experiences that have shaped my work over more than five decades.

Reaching eighty has made me more conscious of the value of time and of the friendships that sustain a creative life. Health challenges continue to make composing more demanding, but the wish to write remains. I look forward to pursuing the musical ideas still waiting to take shape, and I offer my warmest thanks to everyone who has shared in this anniversary year.