The last show of the year and the third one in London (previously we've been to Keats House and the Royal Festival Hall) brought us to this premier venue. I have a little bit of history with Kings Place, having been commissioned to write new poems for its opening in October 2008.
Read MoreSunspots: Bournemouth Arts by the Sea Festival, October 13th
From the north to the south and an intriguing new venue: Bournemouth's Natural Science Society. This beautiful Italianate Victorian building is crammed with cabinets full of shells, skulls, skeletons and all manner of natural wonders: the kind of things my Sun likes to take credit for: "I made the cats./I make the snow."
Read MoreSunspots: Manchester Martin Harris Centre for Music & Drama, October 9th
Room 101 was my hotel room in Manchester, nothing to do with the wonderful Martin Harris Centre with its back-screen projection, remote controlled lighting rig and helpful technical staff. And we were in the John Thaw Studio Theatre! I've loved John Thaw since the 70s when my parents would let me stay up late to watch The Sweeney on school nights. But the next day, I couldn't get Inspector Morse's voice out of my head: "There's been a performance of Sunspots, Lewis..."
Read MoreSunspots: Reading South Street Arts Centre, October 8th 2015
After London, Reading was another 'home fixture'. I lived here from 1989 to 1997, having side-stepped academia to work at Our Price Records for a couple of years. The second 'Summer of Love', which I'd spent in Brighton and which did its best to distract me from my MA, was soon clouded o'er by Britpop and the seeping mist of shoegazing.
Read MoreIt's Me, O Lord
...standing in the need of prayer. Well it felt that way in the warm-up room of Jacques Samuel Pianos on Edgware Road.
Read MoreRemembering 'Simoraine'
Every Father's Day I think about funeral music, a theme that's played through my mind ever since October 1997, when I heard the pieces that my musician father, Clive Barraclough, had selected for his final 'appearance'.
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