The works of Michael Stimpson have been performed and commissioned by some of the UK’s most distinguished artists including the English Chamber Orchestra, London Sinfonietta, Allegri and Maggini String Quartets, Bristol Bach Choir, Roderick Williams, Paul Agnew, David Campbell, Philippe Graffin, and Sioned Williams. A number of the UK’s best venues have featured performances of his work including Wigmore Hall, Queen Elizabeth Hall, Purcell Room, and Cadogan Hall, as well as a variety of UK festivals. International recognition has prompted performances in Australia, Europe, Iran and the USA. In late 1976, on Christmas Day at the age of 29, he entered the most significant part of his life when he contracted a rare neurological virus, Guillain Barrè Syndrome. An operation to place a ventricular shunt in the brain was the turning point for a lengthy recovery, one day being able to move slightly a shoulder, then an arm, until by the end of 1977 he could just walk and contemplate leaving hospital, albeit registered blind.   Options at the time were not spectacular, and so in consultation with a hand specialist and with continuing physiotherapy he began to learn to play again, although by then he had established that a small amount of tremor in one finger of the right hand would make high-level performing impossible, and instead began to focus on articles, journals and composition.