I've been swamped with work and worry again, but I'd be remiss in my self-promoting duties if I didn't mention tomorrow's big event: the release on the Alba label of my first "solo" CD. The music in question is my hour-long cycle of piano pieces, Leaves of Grass, played by Risto-Matti Marin, a great pianist, and my great friend.

The release concert itself is being sponsored by the Espoo International Piano Festival. The highlight of the concert will be readings of the poetry that inspired the music by the renowned Finnish actor Hannu-Pekka Björkman. This will be the first time most of the twelve-odd poems will be heard in Finnish, and the translations were commissioned by the festival as a set from composer and translator Jaakko Mäntyjärvi. Between the three of us, we evolved a structure to the performance that turned out to be powerful and quite moving. I'm really excited about this, as you can tell. The CD will be on sale, in both hard copy and download form, in the coming days. Watch this space!