A bit of a messed-up day again today – remnant flu meant I spent the morning struggling to breathe and had to cancel my lesson with my student, which was annoying, but gradually it passed and I was able to head down to TVU for my own lesson in the evening, albeit I didn’t recover soon enough to go and get my student card (again).

Well, the lesson was great. Just what I wanted – we had a bit of a chat, he asked about my Remembrances performance, we did some score reading (Gordon Crosse’s Thel and Nicholas Maw Life Studies I) and talked about ways of using some of the techniques in the scores in other works. He played a piece of his which specifically used techniques from Thel, which was very interesting. Then we looked at Diabolus and he made some excellent suggestions which I’ll definitely play with, and talked about what I should work on next. And kind of came to a conclusion, too! Or at least, I know which opportunity I’m working towards, exact instrumentation yet to be decided. I think I’d like to play around with the kind of space Maw achieves in the opening of Life Studies I – it’s just immense! SO wonderful. Anyway, ideas are percolating…