I think we can safely call it spring now, here in the UK. It’s the end of the first week of consistently decent weather in southwest England and the delicate sounds of afternoon birdsong fill the air. Birdsong is a beautiful sound, redolent of hope and renewal, but it is now tinged with some ambivalence. … [Read more…]

In an hour and a half’s time, Sun and Moon, Sea and Land will magically appear on all music stores for you to listen to at your leisure. It’s an album of pieces that I’ve practised, tweaked, performed and recorded many, many times, but it still feels fresh and new to me, which I think … [Read more…]

I’m very grateful for some of the radio play the new album’s had in the last few weeks ahead of its release on the 29th of this month. Firstly, thanks to BBC Sounds for including one of my new album tracks in the latest edition of ‘The Sleeping Forecast’. I always enjoy listening to these … [Read more…]

On Saturday night I had the huge privilege of performing at the Steep 900 Celebrations, playing some beautiful music celebrating the South Downs Way by Damian Montagu, alongside The Tippett Quartet, Stewart Prosser, Dave Gale and Will Spencer. I was also honoured to accompany the brilliantly talented violinist Alexandra Peel to perform Vittorio Monti’s Czardas and Vaughan Williams’ … [Read more…]

“Hey everyone. I’ve decided the toxicity of this hellsite has gotten too much since Musk got his mitts on it. I’ll be joining ‘Threads’ and shortly resuming all of the usual compulsive behaviours that I had with Twitter which I am now, for some reason, falsely remembering in its pre-Musk era as a chaotic but … [Read more…]

Ever had the urge to just… flee? To get out of the immediate situation you’re in and deal with the social repercussions at some future date? It was a small but not insignificant part of university life as a composer to bring in compositions to ‘workshops’, to be played by touring musical ensembles. While these … [Read more…]

I am excited to announce that, after many years in the works, piano album no. 2 will shortly be let loose into the world. It’s called Sun and Moon, Sea and Land and is loosely inspired by Herman Hesse’s 1930 novel Narcissus and Goldmund and that story’s themes of time passing, mortality, beauty and adventure. … [Read more…]

I am very excited to be playing piano at the Steep 900 Celebration Concert on Saturday 9th November. I will be joining the Stewart Prosser Brass Trio and The Tippett Quartet to perform a selection of beautiful pieces from Damian Montagu’s albums ‘In A South Downs Way’ and ‘A Walk Into Reverie’, as well as … [Read more…]

For the last month and a bit I’ve been working with my friend Giles Thomas on the music for Ryan Craig’s adaptation of 1984. Directed by Lindsay Posner and starring Keith Allen, Mark Quartley, Eleanor Wyld and David Birrell, the show is at the Theatre Royal Bath until Saturday and then on tour to: I … [Read more…]

How much digital music and film have I bought? I think I ‘own’ virtual boxsets of a couple of TV shows and have a tentative digital music collection too. But I am undisciplined about where I store it or what account it is linked to, and so on. And some of the services I purchased … [Read more…]

I really enjoyed watching some of the coverage of Glastonbury 2024 on TV this year. As I’m sure is the case for many, watching it has become a bit of an annual fixture for me and my partner. I’ve only been to the festival once (2014), when I was there as a session pianist for … [Read more…]

It was a lovely surprise to see an email from BBC Introducing this morning mentioning that my piece ‘Among Summer Hills’ from the Evening Chorus EP I (re)released last year had been included in the latest episode of The Sleeping Forecast. This one’s theme is the summer solstice and the history of Stonehenge (“It’s killing … [Read more…]

Q: What’s the one thing that’s even less profitable than streaming music? [drum roll] A: Sitting and checking your music’s streaming statistics. Spotify for Artists is just one of many tools that tells you loads of quite specific statistical information about your listeners, such as what cities they are concentrated in, how many tracks each … [Read more…]

Well, it’s time for a new single to be released, which is the fourth and possibly final track to be released ahead of my second solo piano album. I’ll be sharing the tracklist of that pretty soon. This one is called ‘Fleur 05 07 18’, named for the sunny day on which I first came … [Read more…]

I had the pleasure and privilege of performing a selection of pieces on the piano at All Saints Church, Wyke Regis, a few weeks ago. This is the third recording in the series. In as much as piano pieces can be ‘about’ anything, it’s a reflection on those ephemeral but meaningful connections that one makes … [Read more…]

Where were you when you first saw Apple’s 2024 advert for the iPad Pro: ‘the thinnest product they’ve ever created’? That’s what people will ask each other in 50 years. Maybe that’s what their descendants will ask each other in 500. A cataclysmic world event. A mission statement for the future. A giant hydraulic press … [Read more…]

I’ve been interested to read the press around Taylor Swift’s new album. These big cultural events tell us much about where society’s collective head is at regarding the music industry, consumerism, the artist vs the art, and culture in general. I haven’t listened to much of Swift’s later work but I found the single ‘Anti-Hero’ … [Read more…]