It’s all coming together! Just five days to go now before I present the latest of my collection of new piano love songs at Hoxton Hall. I am playing the new pieces, one by one, to their composers, which is, as you would expect, incredibly helpful. I had half an hour yesterday on Skype with Richard Reed Parry in Canada and another session this morning with Chia-Ying Lin, the over-25 competition winner, in Italy, with more calls booked with Joby Talbot in Oregon and Pavel Zemek

Composers from 61 different countries sent in entries to my Love Song Composing Competition. The largest number of entries came from the USA (118), followed by the UK (93). Single entries came from countries as far apart as Chile, Finland, Guatemala, Hungary, India, Nigeria, Syria and Taiwan. For a full list of countries, click here. Come and hear the winning pieces at Hoxton Hall on 26 April!