Concurrent Air began life as the final section of In the Key of H (1993/1998), a work for speaker, saxophones and tape created in collaboration with the poet Ian Duhig. In the original version of Duhig?s poem ?Unity?, the penultimate part of In the Key of H, he made a pun on ?derri?re?, so the ?air? in my music is the Londonderry Air, blurring the harmonies of Percy Grainger?s arrangement and with the tune removed. (Perhaps it was appropriate that when Duhig published ?Unity? in his collection The Mersey Goldfish (Bloodaxe Books, 1995) he removed the pun.)

In the Key of H was commissioned for the 1994 Ilkley Literature Festival with funds from the Yorkshire and Humberside Arts Board and premiered in Ilkley, West Yorkshire, by Ian Duhig, with Steve Cottrell (saxophones), on 11 March 1994. Concurrent Air was subsequently recorded by the Delta Saxophone Quartet on FMR CD104-C0502.