the African Classical Music Ensemble, which nurtured his burgeoning composer credentials. In 1995, a BBC TV documentary called Africa I Remember was done on Tunde Jegede's music and focused on his orchestral work. In this programme, he performed new compositions alongside the London Sinfonietta, which was conducted by Markus Stenz. With his now fully-fledged composer credentials, Jegede was appointed as innovations composer for the Eastern Orchestral Board, who facilitated his working with many of the major orchestras in the UK including the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, the Philharmonia, Britten Sinfonia, Viva Sinfonia, the London Mozart Players and the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra. All these orchestras and ensembles were keen to play his original compositions. During this period, he was specially commissioned to write a percussion concerto for Evelyn Glennie and Double Orchestra, an oratorio for the city of Milton Keynes and a string quartet for the Brodsky Quartet as a part of their Beethoven Op. 18 recording, which was released on the Vanguard label and is still being performed by them worldwide. Over the years, Jegede has kept his creative diversity intact by working closely with singers, vocalists, and spoken-word artists from a wide range of traditions, including opera, pop, R'n'B, reggae, hip hop, and jazz. In 2002, he started ACM Productions with the primary goal of creating accessible quality productions across a small spectrum of genres, namely: Urban, Pop, Classical and jazz. Cultural influences Born to a Nigerian father and Irish mother, Tunde Jegede had to learn to balance cultures and carve out an identity from an early age. Music was his refuge. Leaving England as a child, Tunde traveled to Africa to train with master of kora Amadu Bansang Jobarteh, whose family has held the ancient griot tradition since the 13th century. Here, Tunde found a sense of home and belonging, a place “where my inner and outer voice began to merge.” He was shown that music is a way of life, an integral part of society. In parallel to studying kora, Tunde also studied cello in the Western classical tradition, but played these instruments in isolation from each other. Only later, after a quest for a universal truth in music that took him through improvisational jazz and musical collaboration, did he finally find the space that allowed him to weave together all his musical threads. He says, “Living between worlds allowed me to form my identity, embrace my path