Sometimes things happen that puts everything in to perspective....... A great friend of mine was suddenly taken ill just over a week ago, life threatening, and is fortunately now recovering well in hospital. Totally out of the blue.......

Musicians are a lot of the time obsessive people, you have to be really, the business is tough and you're dealing with creativity, things that happen unplanned, spontaneity is the key a lot of the time. Of course playing a musical instrument and/or writing music also requires a lot of hours of hard graft practising, there are no short cuts. So, as I said an unfortunate event happens and perspective and balance come to the fore. It's only a gig! No need to lose any sleep about a saxophone reed, for heaven's sake!!!

It is with excitement and determination that I'm looking forward to next Tuesday's gig at the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester, UK (26.4.05). A new multimedia project that involves projected images, voice, new music for saxophone and percussion. The programme includes the world premiere of a new work written by Graham Fitkin. This is the reason that I formed the World Tenor Saxophone Consortium, so that a group of saxophone players could commission a good composer and have a great new addition to the repertoire. Well after all the hard work now it's premiere time. Graham has come up with the goods, I'm looking forward to playing his music! Have a look at the WTSC page for details of WTSC Members premiere dates and venues. Good luck to everyone!

My friend will fully recover given some time because he is a strong person, both physically and mentally, he expects the same from people around him. When I saw him a couple of days ago and said 'Am I glad to see you' he replied 'Am I glad to see anyone!' We were talking about gigs that are in the book later this year........

Keep it positive!

Andy