The Silver Dial

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Composer Information

Andrew was born in Southport, on the Lancashire coast, in 1963. His father was a carpenter and teacher, and his mother originally trained as a classical singer – an ambition that gave way to raising four children, of which Andrew is the second eldest.

Andrew has been passionate about music from an early age, and learnt piano from 8 and flute from 13. He also sang and acted, and appeared in many school and college productions.

He went on to gain his Music degree at Manchester University, and also studied piano with Derrick Wyndham and Renna Kellaway at Manchester’s prestigious and internationally-renowned Royal Northern College of Music, between 1981 and 1984.

Andrew has had a 30-year career in music and the arts, encompassing performing, composing, arranging for the stage, teaching, musical direction, theatre management and theatre production.  In recent years, he has concentrated on freelance projects: programming orchestral and recital series for major UK venues, and composing and recording his own new compositions for piano. Recent clients have included the English Symphony Orchestra, the Cheltenham International Concert Series, Aldeburgh Music and Aldeburgh Festival, Somm Recordings and Saffron Walden Concert Hall, among others.

Despite this busy, varied and successful working life, Andrew did not begin composing for solo piano until the age of 50 – a mere 42 years after his very first piano lesson, on 1st June 1971.  He says of this new venture: “I had done a fair amount of composing over the years, but always for stage productions, bands or vocalists. I’d never given my own instrument – the piano – any real creative attention in that way. Then, for a couple of years leading up to my fiftieth birthday, I began to feel that I had some piano compositions in me, and that I had something to say through them, but my administrative commitments just seemed to soak up all my time and attention. Only when I changed from being employed to freelance did I sit down at the keyboard and actually try to create something for solo piano. To my amazement, these 12 pieces, and more, came flowing out – very quickly!  Within two months I had written the whole album.”

Andrew is also composer-in-residence for Cheshire-based music company, In Harmony, who produce bespoke piano music for weddings and other special occasions. He records, mixes and edits all the tracks supplied by the company to their clients.

Project Information

The Silver Dial was a story Andrew first heard of as he was growing up, in which a young English soldier goes to war and takes with him an old silver pocket watch, which has the power to contain and recall twelve special memories – people, places, and feelings – which the soldier knew before departing for the battlefield.

Then, quite unexpectedly, the story was brought back to mind by the Dr Who episode, Human Nature, in 2007, in which The Doctor, pursued by aliens threatening his life, hides his Time Lord identity within a silver watch, leaving his companion, Martha, to look after it.  It revived the story in Andrew’s mind, and gave him the inspiration to look for musical ways of expressing similar memories – although it was a few years before he actually began the process.

He recorded the album in August 2015 at Potton Hall, in the picturesque and tranquil surroundings of the Suffolk countryside. His producer and recording engineer was Phil Hobbs, one of the country’s most in-demand music producers. Andrew states that working closely with Phil to hone and shape each piece, and the collection as a whole, was an absolute creative delight.

He approached the recording dates with 18 pieces on the table. After some thought (and a lot of playing) he left three at home, hoping to improve them at a later date (one has already found its way onto the long-list for his next album). Phil and Andrew recorded 15 tracks at Potton Hall, and spent quite some time discussing which worked best for this album, both musically and thematically, before arriving at these final twelve.

The twelve pieces which make up The Silver Dial collection remain very faithful to the original concept. That was always very important to Andrew, and he was determined that the finished album would reflect the theme he had started out with as his inspiration. Thus, the twelve compositions blend imagined memories a First World War soldier might carry with him on the battlefield, pieces which evoke actual experiences he might have had at the time (such as White Cliffs or Letter From Home) and particular memories of his own (such as Into The Trees or Esther’s Favourite Place) – often places which are special to Andrew and his family.

This album – his first for solo piano – is incredibly special to him. It has been almost three years from first sitting down at the keyboard to the day of its release. In these days when the classical music scene is more varied than ever, and a whole new audience is coming to the classical sound via a minimalist, accessible, often contemplative ethos, Andrew have tried to write a collection of pieces that not only fit into this ethos and have (hopefully) wide appeal, but also create something a little bit different – twelve pieces which evoke sights and sounds, people, places and deep emotions, and which hopefully tell a story of their own. They have been loved and nurtured over these three years, and have almost become his friends. Andrew hopes they become yours too.