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Sunday, the 25th of January 2026  #Mokafe #Brussels #Splash #SeaSymphony #BrusselsCathedral #GuntherVanDeven #LaurentFobelets #GalerieDuRoi #notebook #composing #gestation #orchestra #symphony #violin #flute #brass   I am in my favourite café in Brussels, Mokafe. It’s a wonderful old style café brasserie in the glorious Galerie du Roi, an indoor shopping arcade built in 1846. It has no background music so it is perfect for the gestation process in composing.   I have just com

Friday, the 2 nd of January 2026  #notebook #Tide #SeaSymphony #SciathlúireachMhuire  It’s been fun looking back at my notebooks and seeing the emergence of Tide, the 4 th movement of the Sea Symphony. It started as a harmonic shape, rooted on a pedal D. That was one of those moments when I woke in the middle of the night (3am on 3 rd September, to be precise) and had to write down the sketches. I have a miniature pad of manuscript paper by my bed for such emergencies.  Ne

Wednesday, the 26 th of November 2025, very early morning  #Tide #SeaSymphony #SciathlúireachMhuire  I just woke up with a map of the final section of the 4th movement. I reached for my miniature pad of manuscript paper but it was not there. I had to get out of bed to get my notebook. It now has a structure for the model transposition of the cantus firmus, an augmented version of the ancient Irish melody which opens the movement and the figuration to turn it into a grand fi

Sunday, the 2 nd of November 2025  #Tide #SeaSymphony #composing #notebook   I left my notebook in Sheffield – I'm used to forgetting things now and almost always have a contingency in place. I started a new notebook today and got to use it during breaks in a day out – glorious singing in Ealing Abbey, a feast for the eyes at the Brands Museum, coffee and a snack in Ladbroke Grove, then shopping. It is then that I needed time out, after overload. I sat like a lost soul on a