Jesse B is starting at Trinity College of Music to do a Postgraduate degree on the piano. He wants to be a performer and teacher of piano. He spends most of his time practising and relaxing in the pub and wants to compose in the future.

Peter A comes from musical family, so it seemed only natural to start competing with his mother for time on the piano stool. After finding Chopin's Waltzes too challenging for starters, and convincing himself he had seen J.S. Bach driving a van (!), his mother thought he would benefit from some proper lessons. He focuses on composers who spanned the period between Beethoven and Rachmaninov. He has always been keen to explore the by-ways of classical music, which has led to many hours in libraries, and forests of photocopies! When not looking down at the keyboard, his eyes are looking up at the weather or the stars; he has maintained weather records for 19 years, seen the aurora borealis twice from home and experienced the darkness of the total solar eclipse from Devon in 1999. More recently, he has developed an interest in Chinese culture, and has visited China four times. His piano repertoire now includes Chinese folksongs! Although he graduated in environmental science, he decided to pursue a career in computing, but music has always provided his greatest inspiration.

Anne spent most of her working life in big international companies desperately searching for musicians with whom to sightread chamber music. Since July 2002, she began pursuing a porfolio career juggling teaching statistics, writing a book on electricity, building Web sites, and playing the piano. She enjoys meeting interesting people from all walks of life and sharing the inspiration of music, food, and conversation. She maintains a collection of hilarious parodies and intimate home concerts on her web site of 4 years: analyticalQ.com, a platform for self-expression.

Bon Journal

Purple Piano Potluck Punch Party

Everyone wore purple.That was the requirement. Yousif the artist didn't wear purple, so he quietly disappeared to his art studio to paint his hat purple. My neighbour Graham didn't wear purple, so he went home to put on a proper purple shirt.

What did everyone bring? Something that's purple or starts with the letter P.

Peter brought a big papaya from Chinatown and this was soon gobbled up.

Poul brought purple fruit juice to add to the purple punch.

Amanda brought a purple ornament after decorating my garden with her exotic purple flowers.

Jola brought a beautiful purple gladioli and home-made roasted aubergines.

Lucy brought freshly cut pineapples and purple Astor flowers.

Inge brought a potato salad.

Lyn brought a bottle of Pimms.

Dave brought purple clubs which he later juggled with.

We sang the Purple People Eaters, Miss Cecie's Blues from The Colour Purple, and Puff the Purple Dragon.

	These were the first to arrive, the two master chefs Jesse and Poul both standing, and Peter who played background music while everyone else arrived.
	Young Jesse blew me away with Rachmaninoff's most famous preludes. Jesse brought a one piano six hands piece called The Secret. What an experience being sandwiched by two pianists on either side!
	I met the Thiele family at a wedding in Richmond. They were so interesting that I decided to invite them to my purple piano party, in hopes that they would play their violins. Needless to say, I was very impressed!
	Ian (violin) and James (piano) sightread the theme from Schindler's List and Ravel's Pavanne.
	The age ranged from 7 years to about 60. It's always nice to see the young and the old mingle like old friends.
	I gave Yousif my camera to take pictures. In hindsight, I should have asked him to draw people's faces instead. He drew one of Paul because of his characteristic face. Yousif read a poem in Arabic. Amanda read the translation which caused a reaction.
	Despite the early start of the party at 4 pm, some friends had to leave early. They missed the surprise at the end - Dave the juggler and Peter the harpist in the dark. The party ended about 4 am in the back garden in the dying fire with Peter Murphy's live harp music !
	A couple almost didn't come. Two pianists didn't call and didn't show. One person called beforehand to apologise about food poisoning. Another called during the party about being sick. This was a private party by invitation only. Now, if my home was bigger, I would have invited more people! Nothing beats having friends I've known for a long long time to show up just when I thought they wouldn't!	Yousif Naser chose to sketch Paul Makepeace

MORE PHOTOS TO COME!

24 August 2003 Bank Holiday Sunday

Parody: Leavin' on a jetstream by Anne Ku

Home Concert Series

People who like PURPLE are artistic, temperamental, aloof, introspective, aristocratic, creative, intuitive, feelingful, regal, spiritual and creative by nature. Those who dislike it are critical and lacking in self-confidence.
- from "The Complete Colour Reference Manual" by John Miner

The Colour Purple by Alice Walker

While surfing the Net to find purple songs, I discovered a hand-made, hand-painted purple piano. Not only that, the owner had written, sung, and recorded a song called the Purple Piano. So I wrote to Charles David Denler, who not only sent me a full MP3 of the song, but also explained where the idea came from: The idea for the purple piano and the CD project came in a dream. Kind of strange, but thatıs where it all started. A friend of mine is a guitar maker. I brought him the plans, and we crafted the piano together in his shop. After the piano was built I received tons of publicity, including a TV spot on the evening news and a bunch of front page articles. A producer for National Geographic heard the CD Purple Piano and this launched my career as a film score composer. I then opened my modest studio and have been going strong ever since. My family and I live and work on a small gentlemanıs farm in Marlborough, Connecticut with two dogs and eleven chickens. The chickens all have names and we would never think of eating them, but we do get a few dozen eggs each week.

Suggestions for composers and musicians whose last names start with the letter P from my friend Stephan, trumpeter and guitarist:
also always loved Michael Praetorious. I've only ever heard him done by
original instruments, in fact I've got the Harnoncourt compilation at home
with that. Might sound a bit static on the piano, though.

Then there's Pergolesi. I think Goldberg wrote an version of a Magnificat.
There must be some good fun short pieces there as well.

How's about Charles Parry? Don't know if there are piano transcriptions of
his orchestra pieces. But they are "different", aren't they. Except of
course Jerusalem, that's a NoNo.

William Popp, the guy with the Hungarian rhapsody? Well that needs piano and
somep'n else, which I don't remember, probably clarinet.

Arthur Pryor, he did some really fun stuff, I think. Short ones. Always
fancy titles, if I remember that correctly.

Ever played Persichetti? I only know a couple of short pieces that Shel
Silverstein did, but I don't have the record here for the titles.