Recordings of my music

Transfiguration: Piano Music by Phillip Cooke

I’m really looking forward to the release of Transfiguration: Piano Music by Phillip Cooke on the Prima Facie label in February this year. The recording was made by pianist Duncan Honeybourne in Hereford in November 2022 and is the culmination of my transfiguration project that has occupied me creatively for the past few years. Other than a piano arrangement of my early Elegy (2003), the other works were all written in the past three years with the majority in 2022 during my sabbatical. Having written almost exclusively for voices and organ in the past fifteen years it has been both a challenge and a fantastic opportunity working on this project and I’m looking forward to seeing how these works are received and where it might lead me going forward.

16/02/2023: CD launch at the University of Aberdeen, with Duncan Honeybourne performing two pieces from the CD. Duncan has also given performances in Peebles, Inverurie and Cromarty on a short tour of Scotland.

14/04/2023: Recording officially released! Looking forward to some reviews…nice or not. Also available on streaming platforms.

25/04/2023: First review of the CD has arrived, on the British Music Society website, the highlight being: ‘The music in the initial four items of the first CD could seem outwardly simple, often gentle and beautifully transparent. However just listen, and you will be delighted by whole new worlds of complexity in rhythm, melodic line and counterpoint.’ And to finish: ‘That’s what makes Cooke’s piano music so special. He has his own personal style, and he owns it completely.’ I’ll take that!

04/05/2023: A programme on the CD will be broadcast on Austrian Radio Ö1, which will feature broadcasts of some of the Folksongs and Songs of Morning and Night. Very exciting.

02/08/2023: Very nice review of the CD from Planet Hugill: ‘Beautiful…evocative…magical’ - very kind indeed!