The marriage of stories and music is at the heart of almost everything Neil Brand does. His popular series on BBC Four allow him to share his passion for musicals and film music, while audiences around the world enjoy his live-to-picture piano performances and original silent film scores. He appears at the East Neuk Festival on 29 and 30 June.
We didn’t have a record player until I was in my teens, but we did have a piano. I had this extraordinary gift of, and it was absolutely picture-painting music. It was an eye-opener, because piano lessons had slightly stultified me about music. A love of music didn’t come my way until after I left school; I asked my school music teacher if he would teach me for two years after I left university – he got me through my Grade 6 and my O-Level Music. It was a weird start to a musical career, but Rick Wakeman at least taught me that there were no boundaries and that you could be a rock star playing in a classical style.
