Many composers have written and dedicated works to him, among them William Alwyn, Stephen Dodgson, Joseph Horowitz, William Mathias, John Metcalf and Alan Rawsthorne.
John Metcalf's 1990 opera Tornrak features throat singing by the Inuit characters.
In addition to these he has also given premieres of works by composers John Tavener, Martin Butler, John Metcalf, Julian Phillips, Edward Dudley Hughes, Ian Wilson, Richard Causton, Edward Rushton, Arlene Sierra and Huw Watkins.
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While living in Montreal in the early 1970s he joined with authors Raymond Fraser, Hugh Hood, John Metcalf and Ray Smith to form the celebrated Montreal Story Tellers Fiction Performance Group.
In the early 1970s he and fellow authors Clark Blaise, Raymond Fraser, John Metcalf and Ray Smith formed the well-known Montreal Story Tellers Fiction Performance Group, which popularized the public reading of fiction in Canada.
The old road was one of the many roads in east Lancashire constructed by John Metcalf, perhaps better known as Blind Jack Metcalf, a civil engineer from Knaresborough.