I’m on my way to Aldeburgh (where, incidentally, by the end of the day, I’ll have given two concerto performances with a cat’s tail attached to my trousers – but that’s another story), and now seems as fitting a time as any to pen a few words about the Aronowitz Ensemble; for Aldeburgh is where the Ensemble really began, in November 2004, when Magnus assembled seven of us there for what, at the time, was set to be a one-off rehearsal residency and concert. It was an extraordinarily wonderful week: we rehearsed, chatted, ate, drank, put conch shells on our noses and marvelled at the unusual lyrics to Katie Melua songs. It would have felt a great shame to have left things there.

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I’m now in that odd limbo for a composer between having finished a major work and its first performance.  I sent the full score of the Concerto to my publishers in the middle of July, having delivered the final section to Owen and Olly on the 2 July (on time!).  I did various proof corrections by email from Canada where I was resident at the Banff Centre in August, but that’s now all complete, the conductor has the full score and the BBC Symphony Orchestra has the parts.  I now wait until the first rehearsal on 19th October and hope that everyone else is quietly getting on with it.  No one has screamed yet!

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It is hard to talk about a dream you had.  How can you find the right words to really describe what you felt and lived? How to communicate those feelings to someone who was not experiencing the same? That’s what I keep thinking, trying to write about Marlboro Music Festival where I spent this last summer. Especially because it has now the taste of a dream, something different from the reality, with different rules.

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I’m not a writer. My teacher at primary school had always laughed at me when he was reading my essays … regardless of this fact I dare to write a few words about our last recording of Dvořák‘s music in Rudolfinum in Prague and share our feelings from this great experience.

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I am sitting on a train heading north after a busy couple of months with the Quartet. I have a week of holiday to recharge, learn some notes, wash my entire wardrobe and give my dog some serious love and attention before setting off for a busy summer of concerts.

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Well, by now it’s old news. But although it started with a bang (literally), it must have taken sometime for most people to realize how much their life could be affected by the whims of Eyjafjallajokull, the world’s most notorious volcano for the past few days.

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An extraordinary week in the life of Susan Rivers, Chief Executive, BBT.

Part Two. Saturday 20th – Monday 22nd February 2010. Utrecht – Mora – London

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On February 19th, 2010, the moment had finally come, to which the Borletti-Buitoni Trust and I had looked foward for four years: the première of Gavin Bryars’ Piano Concerto ‘The Solway Canal’, a co-commission of the BBT and the Dutch radio. I clearly remember the very first visit to Gavin’s place in Leicester almost half a decade ago, together with David Hoskins and Graham Johnston, in which we laid out our very first ideas. Already at that time, I definitely felt a pleasant artistic and personal ‘click’ with Gavin. Now, four years later, that feeling proved to be correct.

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An extraordinary week in the life of Susan Rivers, Chief Executive, BBT.

Part One. Monday 15th – Saturday 20th February 2010. London – Aldeburgh – Utrecht

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My trip starts one evening in mid-September 2007:

There we were three young oboists at Herkulessaal in Munich, after having played Strauss Concerto with the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra at ARD´s competition finals. The Jury came to stage, we were down where the audience sits, waiting for the result.

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