Another hectic week here. With five year old twins, my piano lessons work, keeping house and looking after our lovely dog ( yes, that's him pictured; he's a rescue Jackahuahua and we adore him) it can be really hard to carve out time to do what gives you pleasure. But today I massively succeeded... I met friends for coffee after school drop off. I went for a run in the countryside. And best of all, I played my piano for a solid hour. There was laundry to do. There were breakfast dishes piled up. The hoover needed to be run...

..the birthday of Sergei Prokofiev ( 1891-1953) one of the greatest composers of the 20th Century. Well known for amongst many other works, his Peter and the Wolf, and score for the ballet Romeo and Juliet. I particularly love, from the latter , the Montagues and Capulets; a piece that for me is fairly unrivalled in it's sense of drama and power; making it perfect for Shakespeares epic tragedy. It was originally written for orchestra of course, but check out this snippet of the piano version played by the absolute legend that is Evgeny Kissin. Happy Birthday Sergei! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=asWU3OzOrK8