Hi!
Thanks very much for downloading Music For Solo Piano. It is only five short pieces, but I hope that you enjoy hearing them and hopefully it will be a pleasant way to spend ten or fifteen minutes of your time.

I would like to add a short note to this release. In November 2012 my grandfather died. It was by no means unforeseen and he lived to the ripe old age of 88. The reason I am mentioning this is that he was also a pianist, and quite an accomplished one at that. He had a lovely 1956 upright piano that he used to spend hours playing on each night after he got home from work. It was his passion. He told me all of this less than two weeks ago when we had our last chat. Our chats always revolved around music, and particularly the piano. We share the same favourite composer of piano repertoire (Chopin) but also had hugely different tastes. He had a passion for the piano that far surpassed anybody else I have ever been close to. His knowledge was encyclopedic and he must have one of the largest private collections of sheet music in Cork.

I have vivid memories of my dad driving me up to Granny and Granddad’s house in Blackrock on Saturday and Sunday mornings so that I could practice my scales and pieces. I think we did this for two or three years before we got our own piano, and so I suppose you can say that I learned to play on his piano, in his living room (or drawing room, I’m not sure what he called it), the very same place we had our last chat recently.

Although my granddad was a far more talented and virtuosic player than me and always will be (as I have no intention in mimicking his practice hours), he delighted in the fact that I set up North Side Drive, and enjoyed listening to my short and simple pieces. He also liked the music I wrote with the quartet, but seeing as this is probably the only solo piano release I will do, I wanted to dedicate it to him, as the piano is and always will be how I remember him.

Thanks Granddad.