ABSTRACT
Walter Maas was the first alien in my life, although that word had a very different flavour forty years ago. I was an adolescent wanting to go to the conservatory and he saw something in me, virtually the only one who did. He put me in touch with his friend and music teacher Henk Stam, from whom I received my first composition lessons. The result, a work for organ, was performed in the Gaudeamus Music Week of 1954.
