Dear Readers! An astonishing season lies before me, as dreams of entire percussion festivals at major international venues come alive at London's Southbank Centre in my "Metal Wood Skin" curation and at Rotterdam's De Doelen Hall where I am Red Sofa Artist in Residence.

On January 20th 2001 I gave my first full-length solo recital, in the Musashino Shimin in Tokyo, Japan. That programme was toured variously at that time, and in later seasons developed by the addition of works by Louis Andriessen and Steve Mackey.

This Friday it will be my enormous pleasure to be soloist in HK Gruber's "Rough Music" with the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Juanjo Mena. I would strongly contest that this work has earned the status of a "classic" in the repertoire, for being both a pivotal work in the lineage of percussion concerti (a relatively early premiere in our history of 1983) but mainly for the exceptional quality of the music