The work After Dowland was composed after 14 months of intense research into the relationship between notated composition and improvisation. I’m particularly interested in the challenges and potentialities of blending these two processes. The composition is based on John Dowland’s In Darkness Let Me Dwell and seeks to explore through notated and improvised processes the power of musical rhetoric for which Dowland is famous. The piece was written for and premiered by Scorched Earth the free-improvisation ensemble in residence at Middlesex University, London. Score which is based upon Dowland’s music also incorporates graphic notations, as a way of mediating between fully notated and improvised music.