1984

1984 – At the Workshop for Jazz, Rock and New Music I get to know the Dutch composer and pianist Ronald Poelman. Throughout 1985/86 we give concerts as a piano-sax-duo with him at the piano and me on the saxophone. We love Stravinsky, Jan Garbarek and Keith Jarrett, and play our own works and improvising on suggestions from the audience. In this photo from 1996, we prepare the concert The Art of Fugue for piano at four hands. In 2017, his piano quartet Tastissimo will play two premieres of my pieces: The Circle for eight hands at two pianos and Siku siyo mbali (The day is not far) for eight hands at one piano. Without his steady encouragement, I probably would not have become a composer.