GREAT WAR SYMPHONY ENDORSED BY WWI CENTENARY PARTNERSHIP

The Great War Symphony has just featured on the World War One Centenary website (led by the Imperial War Museum). It's great to have their endorsement.

Read the full article here.

THE GREAT WAR SYMPHONY IN THE DAILY TELEGRAPH

(L-R) Classic FM presenter John Brunning, Patrick, Lord Astor (grandson of Field Marshall Haig) and Lady French (great-grand-daughter of Field Marshall French)

I'm over the moon to see the large article in the Arts section of today's Daily Telegraph about The Great War Symphony. Written by the Telegraph's Arts correspondent Ivan Hewitt, it really captures what we are trying to achieve with the project and how exciting it all is!

Read it online here.

The interview took place at the Classic FM studios where we will be releasing the first taster of music from the symphony at the end of May.  We were delighted to be joined by Lord Astor and Lady French who are both descendants of First World War commanders (grandson of Field Marshall Haig) and great-grand-daughter of Field Marshall French, respectively).

CLASSICAL MASTERCLASS WITH ALEX JAMES FROM BLUR

An amazing project is brewing! 

In an exciting new avenue for me, I'm teaming up with Alex James from Blur to produce 14 new arrangements of well-known classical pieces for Sony/ATV Music Publishing.  Entitled 'Classical Masterclass' Alex will amaze everyone with his skills on the bass guitar and, set against strings, harp and horns, the soundworld should be something quite unique! 

The photo above is of me and Alex with Sarah Pickering from Sony and our engineer Steve Price at our meeting yesterday in London.

WHITE MOTH

Great to have finished the vocal score for my new piece White Moth.  Written to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the building of the Norfolk Wherry 'White Moth', it will be premiered in a concert on 11th July in Ranworth Church in association with Wherry Yacht Charter - more details to follow later in the year.

BLUE IN BLUE - THE RE-RELEASE

Really really pleased that after a long time of being unavailable my debut album Blue in Blue from 2004 is to be re-released by popular demand.  

The official release for iTunes, Amazon etc is set for 20th April 2015, but you can get signed copies of it from my website store two weeks ahead of that date!  Click here to order your copies now.

The album features the Classic FM favourite Quanta Qualia, as well as Italian Song, Reflexionem and my Blue Bird Variations.  

Nominated for a Classical Brit award on its release, made CD of the Week on Classic FM and being the highest ever new entry in to the Classic FM Hall of Fame it really helped launch me in to the public eye.  So, it's a very special album to me and for those who didn't get it the first time around I hope you enjoy it.

THE DANE TREE - WORLD PREMIERE - TICKETS NOW ON SALE

Tickets are now on sale for the WORLD PREMIERE performance of my new work for Daventry Choral Society The Dane Tree.  The concert also features works by Parry, Stanford and Vivaldi, plus I'll be guest conducting and playing a selection of my piano pieces.  

TWO ENGLISH SONGS

Hot off the press are my new Two English Songs for soprano Elizabeth Adams.  

Based on the poem My Song is Love Unknown by Samuel Crossman (1624-83) and Echo's Lament by Ben Jonson (1572-1637) I'm really pleased with how they've turned out.  

They'll be premiered by Elizabeth at her Postgraduate Final Recital in the Recital Hall, Birmingham Conservatoire 11am 18th May and I can't wait to hear her sing them!