Seven concert pieces including 'Carmina Banana' and other favourites!

When I began putting together a few piano pieces, back in 2007, I didn't imagine they would quickly spawn a thriving eleven-volume series entitled Eye-Tunes, taking players from 'easy' to grade 8 level. Nor did I imagine these might trigger a further five volumes of arrangements for flute and piano, two called Creature Comforts (which, predictably enough, are comprised of animal-inspired pieces) or indeed the three volumes in this current series, Flute Pastilles.

While it goes without saying that not all pieces conceived for piano will work equally well for the combination of flute and piano, I'm a great believer that a good tune is frequently one which will transcribe easily. I like to think of these cherry-picked arrangements, concise though they are, as being 'proper' pieces, in that they can earn their keep beyond the confines of the practice room or flute lesson. From Book 1 you will find a sprinkling of more thoughtful pieces, such as Wind over Goonhilly, Forget-Me-Not and Follow the North Star to offset the more jaunty pieces. These in particular call for a little extra attention to tone colour, dynamics and phrase-shaping, with some awareness of what the piano part is doing, too. Think hard about choosing your tempo for each piece, as this is a major contributor to musical character, and in the faster moving music, aim to articulate the rhythms as crisply as you can, so that the music can really spring off the page and come to life for your audience.

I must acknowledge, as before, the inestimable contribution to the success of these pieces made by Gillian Poznansky, whose suggestions over the appearance of the scores has made such a difference to how the music is likely to be played. She also came up with a fair number of the titles to these pieces and has done them further service by performing them with me to great aplomb on innumerable occasions in far-flung corners of the globe.