With Plenty To Chew On-Seven concert pieces including 'Carmina Banana' and other favourites!When I began putting together a few piano pieces back in 2007 I didn't imagine they would quickly spawn a thriving eleven-volume series entitled Eye-Tunes taking players from 'easy' to grade 8 level. Nor did I imagine these might trigger a further five volumes of arrangements for flute and piano two called Creature Comforts (which predictably enough are comprised of animal-inspired pieces) or indeed the three volumes in this current series Flute Pastilles. While it goes without saying that not all pieces conceived for piano will work equally well for the combination of flute andpiano I'm a great believer that a good tune is frequently one which will transcribe easily. I like to think of these cherry-picked arrangements concise though they are as being 'proper' pieces in that they can earn their keep beyond the confines of the practice room or flute lesson. From Book 1 you will find a sprinkling of more thoughtful pieces such as Wind over Goonhilly Forget-Me-Not and Follow the North Star to offset the more jaunty pieces. These in particular call for a little extra attention to tone colour dynamics and phrase-shaping with some awareness of what the piano part is doing too. Think hard about choosing your tempo for each piece as this is a major contributor to musical character and in the faster moving music aim to articulate the rhythms as crisply as you can so that the music can really spring off the page and come to life for your audience.I must acknowledge as before the inestimable contribution to the success of these pieces made by Gillian Poznansky whose suggestions over the appearance of the scores has made such a difference to how the music is likely to be played. She also came up with a fair number of the titles to these pieces and has done them further service by performing them with me to great aplomb on innumerable occasions in far-flung corners of the globe.

From Fancies Pour Piano-This Sérénade is the first of 7 pieces collectively called 'Fancies' originally written for piano in 1915.Gabriel Marie Grovlez (1879-1944) was born in Lille Northern France in 1879 and died in war-torn Paris in 1944. From among his teachers who include Gédalge and Lavignac Fauré must surely rank as his strongest influence and this is readily heard in his small but significant oeuvre of solo piano pieces as well as his music for stage and chamber ensembles. Interestingly most of the piano music was published over a period of around a dozen years (1907-1919) and in the lull between these works and his Impressions (two pieces) of 1934 Grovlez wascompositionally preoccupied with songs and chamber pieces many of which languish patiently on the shelf awaiting a wholehearted appraisal. There is as well as his notable penchant for elegance and poetical lyricism a considerable wit to enjoy too (take Les nes The Donkeys from L'Almanach aux images for example) and indeed the fact that Grovlez's middle years were spent fulfilling the duties of assistant conductor and choir leader of the Opéra-Comique seems especially revealing of the man's musical personality and capacity for successfully intertwining serious and less serious genres.Grovlez was quite a cosmopolitan character; besides making a notable mark in his native country (he was latterly a professor of chamber music at the Paris Conservatoire) he travelled to the United States and Africa as well as across Europe. Although we tend to remember Grovlez today for his influence primarily as a composer in the mould of Fauré or Debussy bringing a quirky quality to some of his writing more than occasionally reminiscent of Poulenc it was as a conductor that Grovlez initially made an impact. Moreover we should not overlook the fact that he gave the inaugural performances of some highly treasured works by the likes of Ravel (Ma Mère l'Oye) and Fauré (Dolly Suite) a piano duet which has earned an especially important