Last year, I found myself playing at the 80th birthday party of Martin and Peter Wesley-Smith, down in Kangaroo Valley. Martin died in 2019 (for those of you who don’t know about Martin, he was a composer, and big influence on me – I loved him dearly), but Peter (who I also adore!) is very much alive, and decided to celebrate with a really beautiful afternoon in the local church hall, full of family and friends. The Wesley-Smith twins had lived in the Valley for decades, and Martin used to put on loads of concerts, and run a little choir down there. Loads of people at the party used to come to concerts of mine when I played down there (playing lots of Martin’s music!). I had SO many conversations with people about music, and concerts, and how much they loved Martin’s music.

I had been asked to play some music at the event – a piece that Pete had written lyrics to (not by Martin), and then a piece for singing cellist by Martin (no lyrics – just wonderful music), and then we finished with a children’s song (by Martin) called ‘Walking in the City‘. Ben came to sing that with me – and the audience joined in too. It was wonderful. Before I played, I was introduced as ‘the cellist that plays Martin’s music’. Which is right. I do.

On the way home I said to Ben ‘What a shame no-one else plays this music. It’s really excellent.’ Ben pointed out that there were no recordings of some of the pieces. And then others had been recorded, but not very well. So it was hardly surprising.

So we hatched a plan. I would record them. All the pieces for solo cello Martin had written. I don’t like recording much, but if I didn’t do it, then who would? And lucky me – Ben is a very good sound engineer, and an even better editor. So we’d do it together.

This project is HUGE. We’re still going. But these pieces sound good, you know. (I hate listening to myself, so ‘good’ is all you’re going to get from me.) And they are excellent pieces. And soon, there’ll be a CD of them (or a neat download), with really good notes written about them. And I can’t help think that Martin would be pleased too….