What is it?

My Concerto for Piano and Orchestra is a three-movement composition of just over 24 minutes, which pays homage to the virtues of truthfulness, compassion and tolerance. Although inspired initially by human rights concerns (like much of my music), the concerto is very accessible, attractive and at times exuberantly playful. It doesn't try to be clever for the sake of it: it's just me saying what I want to say, in the way that I want to say it, and without making any concessions to modern trends in composition. The piano part is not unduly difficult and yet it provides a satisfying experience even for a concert pianist. The whole composition is certainly playable by any competent orchestra, amateur and professional.

To enjoy the music in an imaginary
concert setting

For a more technical understanding of the music,
follow the full score

My concerto grew out of various conversations I was having with people in the human rights world. It remained a vague idea until I chanced upon the painting Golden Lotus by the artist Daci Shen. The story of the young mother and child in that painting is described here. The composition was disrupted by work commitments in Vietnam and Albania. Eventually, having retired in the meantime and renewed contact with my pianist friend Makiko Aida in Prague, I took the bit between my teeth and more or less completed the concerto during a one-month stay in Timișoara, Romania, with all the work on the score being completed by mid-July 2026. While the virtues that underpin the concerto are those espoused by Falun Dafa (Falun Gong), they are qualities that should be embraceable by any decent human being. And that is why I - a Christian - am proud to display the motto of Falun Gong in connection with my piano concerto.

The concerto tells an imaginary story, combining the imagery of Daci Shen with the principles of Falun Dafa.

Truthfulness and Tears - Truthfulness has a price; and embracing the truth can cost lives.

The Comfort of Compassion - The young mother sleeps a sleep in which she is comforted by the compassion that she extended to others before her sacrifice. Her sleep is filled with dreams that initially are darkened by her life's experiences but gradually become illumined by dance-like flashes of inspiration, a trance-like prayer that through her sacrifice in the name of truthfulness, the world may become a more tolerant place.

The Triumph of Tolerance - The rest of the world awakens to the realisation that tolerance triumphs in the context even of the society that rejects it. Never for one moment did the young mother sacrifice either her principles or her individuality yet through the triumph of tolerance, her legacy lives on.