As part of the opening concert of the Port Fairy Spring Music Festival, my solo horn work a A Shot At The Stars will receive it’s Australian premiere by Carla Blackwood.

A Shot at the Stars

This solo horn work was commissioned by the London Sinfonietta for their principal horn player Michael Thompson and it is a short but personal work. My wife Ruth was a student of Michael Thompson (although she no longer plays the horn) and over years of hearing Ruth practice I got to know a lot of solo horn repertoire and the horn parts of operas and symphonies. My work picks up some of those influences and alludes to a handful of the works I got to know, through the horn parts and my wife's playing, in particular works by Messiaen, Britten and Weber. These influences come in and out of focus as the piece charts its own territory encompassing bursts of energy, rhythm and expressive melodies.