Piano
The piano was my principal instrument whilst I was studying at Trinity College of Music. My teacher was the brilliant and enlightening Antony Lindsay who, himself, had studied with the legendary Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli. I worked with Antony on a broad swathe of the piano repertoire: Mozart, Beethoven, Chopin, Schumann, Liszt, Brahms, Debussy, Rachmaninoff and Ravel. As the regular accompanist of a close friend, I became familiar with a great deal of the clarinet repertoire. I also accompanied other instrumentalists and singers in a number of the various competitions which took place at Trinity.
Even though the organ gradually took over from the piano, my solid grounding as a pianist has facilitated my teaching the instrument to an advanced level, enabling my pupils to gain professional diplomas.
My 2007 Piano Sonata was composed at, and inspired by, my own piano, an utterly lovely 1917 Bösendorfer. I gave the first performance of the work in 2008, as part of the 2008 Guildford International Music Festival and recorded it at the University of Surrey, on the University’s Steinway Model D (a very different piano to my own).