
July 1 would have been Hans Werner Henze’s 100th birthday. He died in 2012 at the age of 86, and this photo was taken at the Barbican on the occasion of his last concert in London (Olly Knussen, who conducted, is just visible on my right) . We spent a lot of time with him, especially on his visits to Tanglewood and Aldeburgh. At one concert at Snape he started to take a bow after my piece was played, saying afterwards ‘Colin, I didn’t realise my piece was so fast’. His piece in the concert was Adagio adagio. Even more memorable was when, unwilling to face the car journey from Snape to Heathrow, he hired a helicopter to take him there, hoping to make an unobtrusive departure. Inevitably a large crowd gathered to wave him off!