Performing as an alchemist in Hampton court, 2013
One of my favourite activities is practising Bach’s suites for unaccompanied cello [in an arrangement for viola], in an empty chemical laboratory. For not only are the acoustics perfect, but I can also do chemical experiments between movements. Furthermore, there is no audience to make me nervous. It was during one of my lonely practice sessions in room 28 in the Highgate School chemistry department in March 1978, that the door opened slowly, and a young lad popped his head around the corner: “that’s very good, sir. You play well!”. The young lad was Graham Waterhouse, who had struck me with awe as a brilliant young violoncellist (a member of the National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain), and who came from an internationally renowned musical family.Today he is a leading British composer.
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