New album "Kaleidoscope"

My wonderful, unique and much missed piano teacher, Fred Lewin, used to have a black velvet bag of coloured squares.

He would take the bag out during our lengthy piano lessons and, like a wily magician, would gently remove one of the squares.

Holding it up to the light, he would ask me to look intently at the colour, absorb the hue, meditate on the shade and find the corresponding note on the piano. Sometimes I would hit the mark and sometimes I wouldn't. He subscribed to the theory that colours had corresponding notes and that music was in part a kaleidoscopic experience. From the sublime music of Bach to the pointilism of Debussy and Ravel, music was filled with patterns, colours, hues, light and shade.

Inspired by these early years I have tried to fill this album with some of the colours that have adorned my own musical cornucopia. Schubert, Bossanova, The Doors, 70s funk, Egberto Gismonti, Joyce, John Barry and Joni Mitchell are just a few of these sublime influences. The miracle for me has always been that all this beauty and variety was created out of just 12 tones or 12 colours.

I would like to thank all the incredible musicians on this album whom it was a joy and privelege to work with. I feel very fortunate to have such a huge array of talent on this!

This album is dedicated to the incomparable Ella Herschmann, a wonderful presence in all our lives, and a superb concert violinist who introduced me to the piano at a very young age.

Special thanks to my friend Toby Herschmann, who helped me with the early stages of recording. Thanks to my wonderful parents and brother who wholeheartedly encouraged and supported my musical education and my creative dreams.

Kaleidoscope was recorded at Assault and Battery studios and at Alice's Loft studios in London.

For the Latin tracks, drums and percussion were recorded remotely from the Brazilian drummer Eduardo Marques' studio in São Paulo. A top Brazilian drummer and a specialist in all Brazilian rhythms, Dudu lent an entirely authentic feel to the Brazilian numbers on the album, really making them swing!

Having spent several years living in Brazil, and being passionate about so many Brazilian songwriters, I was very keen to write Latin numbers which fused some of the musical influences I had embibed whist living in South America.