Recordings of my music

Contemporary Piano Soundbites

Contemporary Piano Soundbites is a collection of solo piano miniatures composed during the 2020 coronavirus lockdown and premiered on video during the months of April, May and June. The project, which ranked in the top 10% of Just Giving fundraisers nationally during the month of April 2020, has already raised well over £2000 for the Help Musicians UK Coronavirus Hardship Fund, supporting musician colleagues struggling in the current situation. The disc, recorded in July 2020 under conditions of social distancing, presents a representative selection from the online series. It celebrates the diversity of styles embraced by a broad cross section of professional composers working today, and it was an invigorating experience to record an entire disc of pieces which hadn't existed less than four months earlier! Especially stimulating and exciting is the juxtaposition of several leading senior composers with some of their most gifted younger colleagues. Several young composers make their first appearances on disc.

The objective of this disc was fourfold: to imaginatively harness the zeitgeist of our present situation: to bring comfort and enjoyment to a large ready-made audience stuck at home, to aid musicians badly affected by the "cultural lockdown" and to add to the contemporary repertoire, creating an artistic keepsake of this extraordinary phase in our history. The CD features my folksong ‘deconstruction’ The Turtledove, amongst works by the likes of Francis Pott, John McLeod, Sadie Harrison and John Casken

31/10/2020: A nice first review at musicweb-international.com - no mention of my work, but: ‘This excellent CD…presenting a varied soundscape of ‘contemporary’ music. There is nothing particularly difficult here…that said, within this largely restrained ambience, there is much powerful optimism for the future - which currently is what we all need.’

18/11/2020: Another nice review on musicweb-international.com (not sure why there are two?): ‘But, alongside those names one meets Phillip Cooke with his beautiful transfiguration of the wonderful folksong The Turtle Dove. You may know it in a Vaughan Williams vocal arrangement.’

21/12/2020: A further good review in Musical Opinion which refers to my piece as ‘a hushed and hauntingly effective deconstruction of the ballad of the same name.’ Which is nice.