At the moment, in Britain we're facing such enormous cutbacks in education programs and music programs and art programs that you feel you are knocking your head against a brick wall.

He later abandoned his plans. On 13 October 2009 his string sextet The Last Island was performed for the first time by the Nash Ensemble at Wigmore Hall in a 75th birthday concert for the composer. Fragments of plainsong are often used as basic source material to be adapted and developed in various ways.

Sir Peter Maxwell Davies CBE (born 8 September 1934) is an English composer and conductor and is currently Master of the Queen's Music.