People who are retired often say that they are busier now than they were when they were employed.  That certainly seems true in my case, although my personal highlight has been the opportunity to spend more time with my wife and extended family. You may have noticed that however hard they try, musicians never really retire.  After I left Christ Church in 2018 I went on tour to Australia, conducting and lecturing at universities in Perth, Melbourne and Sydney as well at Sydney’s cathedral and St. James, King St. A few months later I was in New York conducting the choir of St. Thomas, Fifth avenue. Since then I have been invited to the USA several times and am already booked up for 2025. Back in Oxford, I was interim director of music at Worcester college from January 2020 to June 2021.  More recently it was a special delight to be the acting director of the choir at St. John’s College, Cambridge, in the Lent term 2023.

Alongside the choral conducting, I have been busy with other projects. I completed my scholarly performing edition of Durante’s Requiem (now published by Peters) in 2019.  I have been the specialist lecturer at a number of Martin Randall festivals and tours, notably the triennial Oxford Divine Office Festivals, the West Country Festival of sacred choral music, and the Sibelius Festival in Finland.  I have also been on the jury for the prestigious World Peace Choral Festival in Vienna. As organist, I have revived my recital career, performing Poulenc’s organ concerto twice in the U.K., and I will be performing Copland’s Organ Symphony in the Meistersingerhalle in Nürnberg in March 2025.

Finally, during the pandemic I was much occupied with keeping the country’s cathedral music departments from collapse: the Ouseley Church Music Trust, which I chair, combined with other charities to raise £1 million, which was distributed to over 30 cathedrals, and which helped their music to survive at a very challenging time.

The driving force behind all these activities is my love of music and its extraordinary power to reach the soul.  Perhaps this is why I am so thrilled to be back at Christ Church for the next two terms, whilst there is a search for a successor to Professor Steven Grahl (who has been appointed Director of Music at Trinity College, Cambridge).  His departure to the Fens is a huge loss to Christ Church, but –  as he has proved so brilliantly –  nobody is indispensable, and I am sure there will be a strong field of candidates to build on his great achievements over the past five years.