I rush in a panic past the bullet-marked walls and shell-damaged buildings of central Mostar. Composer Nigel Osborne waits for me on the rubbly pavement, beneath Bosnia’s unforgiving midday sun.
Sweating my apologies, I explain that I’m meant to interview him about his latest commission for a chamber music festival at an elegant house in the Borders of Scotland – Music at Paxton. I am almost embarrassed to mention such gentle pursuits here. We’re in Bosnia to work, through music, with children suffering from war trauma. I pass stray cats and old men missing limbs, who shelter in the shade of roofless buildings. Scotland seems impossibly unreal. And very far away.
