My oboe concerto was written in the summer of 2024 and is dedicated to Clare Worth who was the soloist for the first performance. The actual form that the concerto eventually took was at least partly prompted by my personal reactions to a number of world events that were unfolding at the time. I don’t wish to be more specific about these but will only add that subsequent developments have confirmed my premonitions during the period when I was composing the piece. The first movement ’Intrada’ represents a moment of extreme crisis. The oboe’s initial entry is a kind of recurring motto whose nature could be characterised as ’more a yell than a thought’ (C.S.Lewis A Grief Observed). This reappears at crucial moments later in the movement and in the rest of the piece. The middle movement ‘Tarantella’ is a dance of death while the final movement, which is a passacaglia represents an aftermath. The coda, while clearly a turning point is intended to be ambiguous. Does it represent a kind of closure or just a blocking out of an unbearable reality? A parallel to the former interpretation can be found in the concluding sentence of Dostoevsky’s novel Crime and Punishment while the latter can be heard in the epilogue to Berg’s opera Wozzeck. The concerto was first performed on the 27th September 2025 with Clare Worth and the Musicians of All Saints conducted by Andrew Sherwood at St Michael’s Church, Lewes.