About Claire

My musical journey began when I met a friend's piano for the first time, aged 7 years old.  

I listened to my friend play what I later realised was an exam piece she'd been learning with the help of her piano teacher, who later became mine too.  

I watched with fascination as she played one piece which had a beautiful, bright F major broken chord style in the left-hand and a tuneful right-hand melody running above it.  I kept what I could of the sound in my head, and where her hands fell onto the keys.  My friend would have no idea that I've played my own version of it ever since!  The experience captured my imagination completely.  

I still don't know what the piece was called or who wrote it.  One day I would love to find out, because although I tried to copy it at the time, mine definitely wasn't an precise rendition.  But that wasn't the point.  What was, was the inspiration and the memory.  

From then on, I was completely hooked.  After badgering my parents, they realised that I really did want to have lessons too.  After some unconventional starter instruments (including a keyboard that I could record my dog barking on - a lot of fun!), I passed my Grade 1 piano exam and I was finally the recipient of a beautiful, magical 'box of sounds' of my own.  I really didn't want spend my time with anything else! 

During my childhood, I was taught piano and music theory privately.  My teacher lived and breathed music with a genuine, infectious passion.  I also studied art, which enabled me to think about music from different perspectives,  for example how the two creative disciplines could collide if we want to make them.  This is something I have started exploring in my own compositions and plan to do more of.  

Various pieces inspired me along the way including, Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata (of course!).  I can't remember where I first heard the piece, it just seemed to enter my head by stealth over the years as I imagine it has with many people.  Chopin's Etude No. 3 in Emajor, Op. 10 no. 3 used to radiate from my grandmother's music box, which was shaped like a grand piano.  I'm lucky that I still have this; sounds that are rooted in memories such as these are important to me.

As well as my music degree, my love for the piano and the physics of the sound led me on a trail of curiosity and to qualify in piano tuning, design and restoration (Dip, CGLI).  

At degree levels I have also studied composition under flute specialist, arranger, composer and publisher, Carla Rees, and then under the direction of the composer Douglas Seville, separately from my degree qualification.

When I'm not engrossed in teaching, piano, composing and further studies and research, I enjoy dabbling with the flute.  I also hope to start working on more compositions in the near future for piano.

You can hear a few examples of my compositions here:

Study in Blue for C flute:

(Performance and audio recording copyright of Tetractys Publishing.  Composition copyright of Claire Allen.)