12th Anniversary

1980
My interest in Stockhausen began when I studied Piano Pieces 9 and 7 with Charles Hopkins at Chetham's  School of Music, (Manchester, UK) in 1980. Of these I performed Piano Piece 7 during a lunchtime recital. I heard the tape music of Kontakte and Gesang der Junglinge played at a school concert. It was the first time I had seen reel to reel tapes used in a concert hall.  The score of Kontakte had appeared in the school library, as it had been included in a GCE curriculum (exam for age 16), though sadly too late for my own study. I also remember a concert including the Chamber Orchestra version of Tierkreis while I was at the school. At this stage the only recording of Stockhausen that I was aware of was in my brother's record collection, and it was from this LP that I first listened to Frederic Rzweski's performance of Piano Piece 10, coupled with Zyklus. I remembered this primarily for the changing speed and pitch of our turntable revealed during the loud repeated high register notes!

1981
I became a Music undergraduate at Dartington College of Arts in 1981 but until my third year the music of Stockhausen was not studied. A number of Stockhausen LPs were, and still are, in the library there (currently Dartington College of Arts is being closed down upon being quasi-amalgamated with Falmouth campus in 2007 - seemingly because the Dartington Trust feel they can prosper without youth!). Recognising favourite performers such as Alfons and Aloys Kontarsky on the sleevenotes, I began to listen. The modulated sound initially caused me to lift the stylus and suspect a technical problem, before discovering it was sounding as intended. As I was playing in the Balinese gamelan orchestra (Gamelan Gong Kebyar), the rhythm and timbre of Mantra and Cage's Sonatas and Interludes were apparent. In the library there were recordings taken from radio broadcasts, including Donnerstag aus Licht from the world premiere. I made an analysis of the piece Mantra during the third year of my degree course, and performed Klavierstück IX as part of my final recital.

1985
I attended the extensive BBC Barbican series of sell-out concerts "Music and Machines" in 1985 (which ended with an incredible performance of Hymnen with soloists and orchestra). A few months later the revival of Donnerstag aus Licht was produced at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, attracting a very large and youthful crowd for every performance, surely thanks to the eye-catching "Stockhausen Is Back!" poster campaign on the London Tube network.

1986 I performed Piano piecees 7 and 9 in the concert hall at Manchester University and later played piece 7 in a recital of contemporary piano music at The Fringe of The Chester Music Festival. I made an analysis of the two DG recordings of Kurzwellen as part of a Masters course at that time.

Websites
Since 1993 my Stockhausen Discography was downloadable via Compuserve, then in Summer 1996 I started a website called "Coloured Silence" hosted at Geocities, which celebrated its first year in existence with a Stockhausen quiz, with Samstag aus Licht CDs as the first prize! This project was updated into the Unofficial Stockhausen Webpage, which was  transferred to Freenetname (registered as stockhausen.org.uk) and then Pipex, until it found its present home at .mac. The content has been similar throughout, only growing as the Stockhausen discography became predominant. The site gets about twenty five visitors (hits) every day, and many music lovers from around the globe have contacted me as a result including authors of books on Stockhausen. Other key Stockhausen performances  I have attended are Sternklang, Michaels Reise (soloists version), Harlekin and Orchester Finalisten at Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival and Der Jahreslauf, Momente (with Angela Tustall) and Freitag aus Licht (quasi concert version) in London.

In 1998 I prepared and played Piano Piece 12 at the Stockhausen Courses Piano Master Class with Ellen Corver, and I travelled to Salzburg to experience the premiere of Scents-Signs in 2004. Apart from Donnerstag aus Licht my favourite Stockhausen pieces are Kurzwellen, Spiral, Kathinkas Gesang and Orchester-Finalisten!

Additionally a Stockhausen blog was maintained for over a year, but has since been discontinued.

My thanks are overdue to everyone who has supported me through correspondence, and for the generous and kind words of encouragement received from the composer and his collaborators. Despite the composer's recent death, I fully expect to continue exploring Stockhausen's music for the forseeable future.