In this deeply felt piano performance, I tell a story of loss – of how being in a familiar beautiful place – last visited with someone loved and lost – can cause an avalanche of bittersweet memories. This original composition is both a reflection on longing and absence, but also the beauty of remembering. Before I play, I speak briefly about the creative process. If you’re experiencing loss and sadness, or just need a quiet moment of inward reflection, I hope this might bring you some solace.

In this piano piece, I improvise sweet, warm, delicious jazzy harmonies with lyrical flourishes to create impressionistic, soulful music that floats over a sparse mid tempo hip-hop style beat to create feelings of equanimity and balance.

In this piece, “Darkest Before Dawn”, I use the poetic structure of the rhythmic matrix or groove to generate a powerful feeling of poetic flow and deep, melancholy feeling. It’s easy to play the notes, as there are so few of them, but the poetry needs disciplined focus as you let go to feel the waves of flowing energy. The sheet music is available here.

On a hot humid day, I decided to make a refreshing, sweet piano improvisation over a cool groove in 11/16 time.

The imagination can invent such extraordinary dreams that can leave us feeling a little untethered. Music has the power to bring us back to our centre.

I believe music helps us make sense of life in all its complexity and confusion. So that means I have to share the complexity and confusion of my life. Yikes!

When all the complicated stuff of life starts to feel a bit hopeless and overwhelming, falling onto a featherbed of warm, sumptuous piano seems like a pretty good idea to me!

Some days we just want the music to take the edge off and leave us feeling a little calmer and sweeter. The two contrasting elements of lush piano and cajon groove is a very pleasing effect and the story of this piece which unfolds over a simple repeated groove and harmonic sequence is very soothing.

This song (or piano piece with vocals) is dark and cathartic with an urgent yet optimistic energy.