25 December 2023
Oakland, CA, USA

I wish I could say there’s one more trip left for the year. If only! Tonight I’m making the exceedingly long trip back to Hong Kong for the three performances / world premiere of Vivacissimo (2023) with LiLa and the Hong Kong Dance Company as part of Hidden / Manifest. It’s one of just one and a half compositions I’ve written this year, one of my least productive in as long as I can remember, at least creatively. I feel compelled to change that. Producing The Once and Future (2021), and so many other administrative projects and efforts, has cost me tremendously in time and free thought. And while one must not run away from responsibilities, I am more or less convinced that I must find my way back to a more creative path- my recent time in Manchester developing the new large-scale work with Kingsley Ng, Stephanie Cheung, and violinist Bomsori Kim, felt like a return to form, but in general, the year has been a serious (and worrying) departure from my path.

End of year revelations, resolutions, and so on tend to be little more than wishful thinking but I am determined to do many things differently in 2024. The year starts with recording sessions for Otherhood (2023) in Helsinki, Finland, and moves on to the screening of Russia: Today (2020) at the University of Oxford. But I mean more than simply career stuff. The music world is one of exceptional loyalty, long-lasting friendships, and utter charlatans. Occasionally people surprise you. I have tried very hard to be on the good side of the equation, occasionally to my own detriment, but at least, the project and the people involved get what is promised to them. It has all given me a very profound insight into what it means to create a work rather than just write one- and to my colleagues whose life depends on the occasional give-away from the local composers’ union, rostrum, or whatever else, I wonder if they’ll ever be in for the rude surprise.

I remember my first flight to Hong Kong when I moved there. The entire thing was a completely different reality from now. I had taken enough things to last me through the autumn, booked a hotel for a month, and got a business class upgrade; it was an auspicious arrival, one could say. More than six years on, on a chilly Christmas night, I can’t say I am traveling with the same sense of wonder, anticipation, or even excitement. Older, hopefully wiser, more myself and also less myself, the end of the year is a chance to look forward to the changes brought by a new one. The clock will invariably turn, and we should all thank the lucky stars for what we have.