I don't really remember when I became aware of the melodies within me. They stole up on me largely unawares. As a child, I played a bit of trumpet, piano, and organ, and, later, whistles, accordions, mandolins/mandolas, and diverse brass. I was surrounded by, but never fully immersed in, the variety of musics around me - the Irish dancing troupe at primary school; the western 'classical' music of my parents and siblings; the wind and swing bands of my teens; the organ at church; the Irish 'trad' sessions in the local pubs; the burgeoning world music scene of the 1980s. And I embraced, as an outsider, the musics that I encountered on my travels, in Greece, the Balkans, and Eastern Europe. I didn't have a musical home as such.

Although I have often had bands and ensembles, I was never fully dedicated to performance - my musicking ebbed and flowed around the business of living, flavoured by what was happening around me. In that musical flux, I can now see that I was looking for a way of voicing the tunes that came to me ... and, for me, that is how it is ... nearly always, I start with melodies, not moods, or concepts, or narratives, or particular performers or events. The voicings available to me through the genres with which I had rubbed shoulders didn't do justice to how I heard those melodies.

And so, it has taken many decades for me to find a musical idiom that I am happy with. I don't remember, either, who coined the term "ethno-classical" to describe the resulting compositions. It both works and doesn't really work for what I write. In the modality of the melody, in the structuring of the sections, in the embedded, integrated ornamentation, in the simplicity of the harmony, in the uneven rhythms, in the stylistic features and instrumentation, in these and other ways, the ethno-dimension may be felt; and in the scoring and development of the pieces, perhaps, a more classical feel is evident. In this piece, maybe a trace of my klezmer obsessions can be discerned; and, in that one, something more Celtic, or Medieval, or Balkan. But, for me, they share a common DNA - siblings as it were.

Just as it took me a long time to find my voice, it took many years also to trust it ... to have faith in the music and how it could express my humours, and to learn to accept that performers and audiences enjoyed it because of, not despite, its particular idiomaticity. Imposter syndrome, some might call it, but I have been mostly content to inhabit the backstage. Now, having a website for my musical self is an unaccustomed move into a spotlight. But, this is where I have now arrived. I am only here because of those who have encouraged, enabled and shared in my musicking.

If the music I've written and arranged gives you some pleasure, then I am happy. If you experience even part of the enjoyment we have had recording it, then I am happy the moreso. If you can feel the deep sense of privilege and pride I have had working with and learning from such talented performers, then their performances have elevated the melodies within me, they have made the music. These are melodies that come as and when they choose, melodies over which I have little or no control, melodies which once born seem to have always been in existence.

Manchester, December, 2020