Under any other circumstances, writing my first TEMPO editorial would be all pleasure, but I am bitterly aware that my presence here is the result of Bob Gilmore's absence. As readers of TEMPO 272 will know, Bob was a dear friend and an inspiration to many musicians, a community scattered across the world but drawn together by Bob's unstintingly enthusiastic support for their work. My intention is to carry on as if Bob was looking over my shoulder, so the editorial emphasis will continue to be firmly on the newest music, but with a healthy regard for the recent past too, especially when there are new perspectives on offer.

It is, of course, a great privilege to take on the editing of such a well-established, well-run journal and, as a TEMPO reader since my teens, it has been a significant influence throughout my musical life. My father, always the most generous supporter of his children's ambitions, found a copy of the journal and thought it might fuel my musical interests. It did, and soon I was a subscriber, early highlights being Volume 97 (1971), the Stravinsky memorial issue (if the person to whom I lent my copy is reading this, can I have it back, please?) and Vol. 101 (1972), devoted to Peter Maxwell Davies at the time of the Royal Opera House premiere of Taverner.

The earliest issues that I read were edited by Colin Mason and subsequently I was lucky enough to meet his successor, David Drew, whose debut as editor was with that beautifully produced Stravinsky issue. Later, I wrote articles and reviews for the journal during Malcolm MacDonald's long reign. When Malcolm invited me to review the CD of Michael Nyman's The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat I immediately accepted but then had to buy my first CD player – a useful introduction to the idea that the balance between income and expenditure in writing for the journal might not always be in the author's favour. More recently, during Bob Gilmore's all too brief editorial tenure, I became a more regular contributor again.

As some readers will know, I am a composer, but a composer who has always looked for opportunities to write about music. One of the problems with being a composer, however, is that one's musical experiences can become too circumscribed by the experience of one's own music. So, a selfish motivation for taking on the editorship of TEMPO is to use it as an opportunity to challenge my own musical habits of mind, to make me think about as wide a range of music as possible.

It seems to me that we live at a particularly exciting time for new music and, like Bob, I want TEMPO to reflect some of this aural ferment. The boundaries between genres, so carefully policed even 20 years ago, are now crossed with impunity, as Ben Jameson's article on Murail's Vampyr! demonstrates: spectralism is introduced to heavy metal and it turns out they have lots in common. On the other hand, we also live in an era in which national cultural identity is a much-debated topic and this is evident in new music too. Some music has an international currency but much more is primarily for domestic consumption; as a journal with a worldwide circulation, TEMPO needs to represent both. Oliver Thurley's article on Jakob Ullmann, a composer born in the former German Democratic Republic, explains how such a private music has evolved and why it needs to be heard much more widely. In the same way, Stephen Long's introduction to the orchestral works of the Icelandic composer Anna Thorvaldsdóttir considers a fascinating body of music from a country whose music celebrates cultural difference.

But in the midst of change there are constants too. Neil Thomas Smith's article is a reminder that musicians need time and space to get together, share ideas and argue about what is important, something that Darmstadt has provided since 1946. TEMPO has been doing something similar for even longer, since 1939, and I am proud to be part of that work, with the reassuringly efficient support of the Cambridge University Press production team and Reviews Editor Juliet Fraser. Encourage your friends to subscribe to either the digital or print version of the journal and do, please, let us know what you think, either through the more traditional methods of letter and email, or via social media: TEMPO is now on Facebook, and we tweet too.