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I wrote the String Quartet, "CEDAR" in late 1994 while living in Biggleswade in Bedfordshire. The first movement took several weeks to complete, with the help of Lorna Chapman who supplied a key section when I was totally stuck. John Verity, who lived nearby, thought that I should talk to Jan Kaznowski for help, He was at that time, leader of the Bedford Symphonia and worked for the local school music service. Later I learned that Jan had arranged the strings for the Benny Hill number one, "Ernie", which impressed me more :-) I went round to Jan's home in Bedford with my score and was delighted when Jan and his dinner guests produced instruments and gave an impromptu first performance. I knew then, that I wanted to complete the project. I called a few days later and arranged to record the piece. Jan had suggested a hall with a wooden floor for the best acoustic, and I found a local school hall that was perfect. The recording took place on a cold Saturday in March, which meant we had to turn the noisy central heating on in between takes, so that we didn't freeze! Jan, Caroline, John and David were great, John Verity recorded the session from a stereo pair of mics directly to DAT (how about that for DDD!) Back in 1995 CDs were not as simple as they are today to produce and I had to take the DATs (Digital Audio Tapes) to be mastered and encoded. I found a company called SOUNDS GOOD in Theale and went down, with the tapes and sat in a studio with Henry Smithson, who guided me through the whole process. After about an hour, I emerged with another tape, the Exabyte Master! With the Audio side of the project complete, I began on the artwork. Cedar had struck me as the name of the project after discovering that these magnificent trees look like any ordinary conifer when young, and only began to spread and display their unique form later in their lives. As I was nearing forty, and beginning a highly creative phase, this struck a chord with me.
I had already found a couple of Cedars I wanted to use on the CD cover, but the one at Tadlow church, near Cambridge, was perfect. if you look carefully at the picture, you can see two of my boys, Billy and Elliot.
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I used a silhouette of both trees on the CD body, which was pad printed in black, then overprinted with the words in white.
I combined the outline of the larger cedar, with a 'self portrait' drawing for the j-card. All the artwork had to be supplied as separations on film which was produced by a company called A3M on Hayling Island. I took everything down to Precision Records and Tapes who manufactured the CDs 
The CD has been warmly received worldwide and has been used in Film and TV projects. Chamber Review Magazine said "This CD Single holds three short string quartet pieces written with emotion and romance - Its sincerity will remind you why you love the form."
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