Being a pretty independent sort of person, I wasn't expecting anyone to come and meet me at Hamburg Airport, less still provide me with transport into town. I hopped off the plane and made my way to C...'s and F's place in Harburg, getting up early the next day to go in to work, meet my new employers and get started learning Andrew Lloyd Webber's music.
The welcome I received was more than I'd bargained for: the office was ecstatic to see me, not least because they thought I'd been kidnapped/got on the wrong plane/ended up in an Afghan opium den. They'd come to meet me, you see, brandishing a card with my name on, but I'd apparently just breezed past, not looking out for anyone. They'd provided a car and a hotel, though I knew nothing about any of this. So, apart from saving them money (and, er, wasting their time a bit) they were overjoyed to note I spoke fluent German, thus saving them extra work with the authorities, as I could do it all myself.
I did check into the hotel, right next door to the main railway station, and then soon into a flat in Barmbek before moving back in with C + F, who'd just bought a house south of the city. I learned my keyboard part quickly, then started studying the full score with a view to conducting. As learning curves went, this one was a prize erection and I conducted Cats for the first time a mere two months after joining the show, never having conducted a thing in my life. I must have been cut out for this profession, as three years later I was nominated chief conductor and musical director of The Phantom of the Opera in Hamburg, the youngest MD of that show anywhere in the world at the time. But back to Cats...
Just a few weeks after getting to Hamburg, something pretty momentous happened. It was November 9th, 1989. To the world at large, the date is better known as my brother's 30th birthday, but, unbeknown to many, something else happened that day...
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