Live Shows
My run of shows across the UK this month begins tomorrow with a hometown show here in Leeds. It’s always a joy to play for a home audience, and this time I’m playing at The Attic - a great new space for live music, where I also happen to be the Musician In Residence (fancy title!).
It also has multiple pianos, and so I’m going to be using both the sturdy Chappell grand and delicate felted Zimmerman upright for the performance, switching between the two, depending on the tunes I play.
I’m excited by the opportunity to play some new stuff alongside some of the classics.
Here’s my upcoming schedule:
Alongside Leeds, I’m returning to Corsham where I last played in 2023, whilst also appearing as part of the inaugural Keystones Piano Festival in Sheffield. This is taking place in the rather stunning Samuel Worth Chapel, with a Steinway on loan from Music In The Round (a great organisation in the city, putting on classical music events in untraditional spaces).
On this run of shows, I’ll be visiting Alnwick, Norwich, Taunton and Wotton-under-Edge for the first time, in the process ticking off a few more counties on my quest to have played in every English county in the last few years.
If you’re in or nearby to any of these places, it would be lovely to see you at a show. All the info is available on my website
New Music
Earlier this year, I was approached by Westwood Instruments - a UK-based sample library company - to be involved with a new instrument and product they were working on, to be called Alt Grand.
The follow-up to their previous release in the series Alt Piano, this was going to take a grand piano and try to create a sample instrument which was truly different to the many other piano libraries which are available, in that it wasn’t going to have that perfect, clean-cut, polished piano sound (there are plenty of those), whilst they were also keen to give users the option of having a felted grand piano (not a common occurrence), alongside the ability to blend clean and felted sounds together, alongside a dazzling array of textures created from the piano samples.
I have been involved with some of the promotional materials, and there will also be an interview coming out very soon.
However, the team also kindly commissioned me to compose a new piece, with a simple brief to demonstrate what the instrument was capable of.
I was especially taken with how great the felted grand sounded, contrasting to the bright tone of the clean samples. I realised I couldn’t think of any pieces at all which utilised two completely different piano tones, and so I thought it could be a successful way of demonstrating how varied the instrument is…literally melding what, on first glance, might appear to be two completely separate piano sounds together.
The result is a piece titled ‘Meld’. You can listen to it on the Westwood Instruments website here: Simeon Walker - 'Meld', whilst you can also listen to the full track on the Westwood Instagram page.
I really like this piece…maybe I’ll play it on tour in the next few weeks.
As ever, though, I’m very keen to hear your thoughts. Do have a listen and let me know. Maybe I’ll have to see if we can put it out on general release a few months down the line.
In the meantime, I’m pleased to share I have a new single coming out next week. It’s a piece which I’ve been sitting on for a while, and which I’m really looking forward to sharing with you.
I’ll almost certainly be playing it on this upcoming run of shows, so come along and hear it live too.
Thanks as ever for your kind interest. Have a great weekend! x
Great piece! And break a leg on your tour.
Really like Meld. Sound fantastic. Love Alt Grand. Great work in bringing this plugin to reality with Westwood.
For the record, I'll also be blaming you for me buying another piano plugin(!) :-D
'Another plugin?' 'Yes dear, Simeon made me buy it....' :-D