‘It was a rollercoaster!’ is how Iles describes 2023 when we meet. I knew she'd celebrated her 60th birthday, but this, it turns out, was only part of the picture. ‘In January I began my year as composer-in-residence with the NDR Bigband in Hamburg’, she explained.
It was a long time coming: ‘For almost 40 years, most of my writing work was squeezed into the time left over from playing and teaching, which wasn't much. Often I worked through the night when inspiration took hold. Having children enabled me to focus when I was writing, but it was always a stretch. So the opportunity to take time out from teaching, to develop my writing, was huge.’
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