Already this year is shaping up to be the busiest I can remember for a long time and this GORR is being written from my hotel room in Venice where I am filming a documentary about the life of Vivaldi and the 4 Seasons and where it is very cold too!
We started filming a few days ago at the Royal College of Music and we are now in the middle of an 8 day shoot here in the city of his birth. It’s beautifully written and will be one of the programmes in the ITV Perspectives series.
On the 17th I have the first of around 20 piano concerts with this one being at Lichfield. (Full details of all the concerts are on the website).
There are also meetings this month in Tenerife as regards a Journey to the Centre of the earth concert there with full orchestra, choir, band and kitchen sink. If this comes off, which looks extremely likely, then for me it would be the one to film for posterity, so fingers crossed.
The few days between Xmas and the New Year was full of musical ideas for future projects and I will be trying hard to trying and put some sort of doable diary in order to start getting them all off the ground. Whilst I so enjoy playing live in all guises, my musical pot is starting to fill up to the brim and it’s time to get them up and running and recorded before it all gets on top of me. It’s a lovely feeling when ideas really start to come naturally and I’ve learned over the years that it’s best to embrace them and bring them to fruition as soon as is possible. ….now if the good Lord could just add a few more days in the week, I might just be able to achieve it all!
There are some wonderful collaboration projects for this year as well and these are extremely exciting form me as they involve people I have always wanted to work with. Just as an example, Alfie Boe and I have been discussing a future project together and will be getting together to start work on it very soon. I had the great pleasure of joining him onstage at the O2 in December and he is pure joy to work with.
I have also been starting writing an instrumental prog album which is about a third mapped out. It is a concept album and in many ways follows the format of the 6 Wives of henry VIII and before you ask, no, it is not about my wives!!
There are plans to expand the on-line shop and also to start with our own exclusive downloads but as all this technology is a total mystery to me I am very reliant on those in the know as to putting it all together and making it happen!
Finishing off this GORR by mentioning the one man shows again, I am pleased to say that each show will have a short first half support act which will include my son Adam on some and The Cadbury sisters at many others. No short change as far as I am concerned though as I will be doing at least an hour and a half second half.
That’s it for now!!
Cheers,
Rick