Beautiful Sights, Beautiful Sounds, Beautiful Places

The final recital of our Autumn tour was a private recital at the house of one of the Royal Academy's financial supporters. And what a great place to give a concert! The owner of the house was an art dealer, and this was reflected in the unfeasibly beautiful artwork adorning the walls. The performance space, intimate and warm, was decked out in indian-themed finery, and just that day, a new painting had been hung on the wall - new in the sense that it had been newly restored after lying undiscovered in a dutch attic for over 150 years! The butler (yes, a genuine English butler!) showed us the extraordinary roof gardens that wound their way around and above our performance space. Just for a moment I imagined what it would be like to be a magpie... So many shiny things! So thrilling! But in retrospect, it was the simplest things - a single vine winding its way up some brickwork, for instance - that were the most beautiful.

Estonian pianist Sten Lassman provided a feast of Chopin and Liszt before Daniel and I serenaded with some of this month's favourites... It's going to be refreshing to have a new programme in January (we will have an all-new all-singing all-dancing selection of pieces coming online in the New Year), but I shall nonetheless be sad to leave this repertoire behind. Why? Because it has been amazing to experience such a rapid curve of development - both individually and as a duo - during what has been our first semi-professional half-season. There is still a lot of work to do, and I am by no means a seasoned professional yet. But it is at least heartening to see glimmers of what exists in my imagination begin to come through in performance. I hope this process of discovery will continue as rapidly as it has been doing in the last six months. I am sure it will.