JJ The milestone we’re celebrating is the eightieth birthday of composer, pianist, scholar, teacher, author and Gramophone contributor Peter Dickinson. I asked him if it was difficult juggling the various strands of his musical life.

PD There were times when I had so much of my own work to do that I checked out of the academic system, mostly in the 80s, when I had a high profile – The South Bank Show did a feature with Melvyn Bragg; the Piano Concerto was in the Proms; the Violin Concerto was a BBC commission. Before that it was possible within a teaching job to find time for composition, as long as you don't insist on writing too much music. I like to think of composers who consider what they do carefully and don’t churn it out. Elliott Carter seems to be a model of how to spend a year on a good piece.

JJ As a teacher did you find it stimulating for your own composition to spend time with young musicians?

PD Yes, I did. But the further up you go in the academic hierarchy, the more time you have to spend on administration. I had a big department at Goldsmiths, University of London; less so when I was teaching at the College of St Mark and St John, then in Chelsea; then at Birmingham University, in the Extramural Department where we put on courses for adults. I was able to pioneer a weekly programme where people came on Tuesday to study the music being played by the CBSO on Thursday. This was very rewarding. It gave me an interaction with people and I had that too in my career as a pianist with my sister, mezzo-soprano Meriel Dickinson. We did all-Satie programmes, with readings, round the festivals, which we recorded and broadcast; then we did single poet programmes in the Purcell Room and for Radio 3 – settings of Joyce, Auden, Stevie Smith, E. E. Cummings. [See Plates 3 and 5.] I’ve always had a strong literary bent as you can tell from my song cycles. All these things add up.