About me

My story

I was born at an early age and had my first instrument, a 4-stringed guitar, at Christmas 1974. My parents didn’t really have any musical knowledge, so they didn’t realise that a classical acoustic guitar was meant to have 6 strings.  As if I cared about that!  For the rest of the festive season I was strumming away what I later found out to be a G7 chord and singing Showaddywaddy songs.  It soon came to pass that I was annoying enough to make my parents enquire about proper music lessons, not just for guitar but piano too.  One of the most exciting days in my life was Monday 6 October 1975 – I visited the National Theatre for the first time, had my first ever swimming lesson BUT MOST IMPORTANTLY had my first piano lesson. No going back after that, I was hooked!

It’s fair to say that of all the life events I have been through, good and bad, MUSIC has been one of my two constants (the other being, of course, my wonderful parents).  A life without music is simply unimaginable! In a bad mood?  Bash out a Beethoven piano sonata!  Feeling overwhelmed?  Listen to A Chloris by Reynaldo Hahn!  There’s music around that suits any & every mood and I’d say that if my life were a soundtrack, there would be one of the most eclectic and weirdly diverse ranges that you could think of – from Iron Maiden to Gorecki, from Purcell to Banco de Gaia.