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GARRETH BROOKE is a British/German musician whose original music has been released on several labels and has received millions of streams. He has performed live all over Europe, and his compositions have been published by Breitkopf & Härtel, Faber Music, and Editions Musica Ferrum.
Garreth’s exclusive UK live date for 2026 will be his upcoming appearance at the Milton Keynes Piano Celebration (Book Tickets here).
In this moving and inspiring interview, we discuss how Garreth’s musical journey has been shaped by love, loss, healing, and the pathway that has ultimately led to his music touching listeners around the world…
Andrew: Thank you for agreeing to talk to Pianodao. Let’s start by talking about your first memories of hearing music, starting piano lessons. I remember from previous chats that you have a vivid memory of this…
Garreth: Yes, some aspects of my childhood were really quite weird! Before I begin I should warn readers that this conversation will include discussion of suicide and intense grief. It is ultimately an uplifting story, but it’s pretty bleak along the way.
My parents belonged to a very intense church when I was young. They would have called themselves “charismatic evangelicals”; I would use less-positive words. We had very little music in the house because the church got them to throw out all music that wasn’t somehow “godly”.
The only things I can really remember listening to were “happy clappy” worship music, Händel’s Messiah, a “Best of Classical” compilation and, bizarrely, ABBA’s Gold album. To this day I’m intrigued how the ABBA survived the cull: “Gimme gimme gimme a man after midnight” isn’t exactly a sacred text… perhaps my parents missed it? I prefer the idea that they weren’t entirely taken in by that particular church’s brainwashing.
My earliest memory of the piano is of me crying. My Mum made me sit on the bench and told me I couldn’t leave until I had practised. I remember sitting there and crying my heart out. Parents, this is not a good way to encourage your children to love practising: to this day, I struggle to begin a practice session, and I often have to force myself to sit down at the bench, even though I love it once I’ve begun.
I did fall in love with the piano eventually, but at some point my Mum began to struggle with depression. It seemed to me to come out of nowhere; up until that point I think I had a fairly lovely childhood, if at times a bit odd. One day she just seemed to become a different person: withdrawn, exhausted, scarily sad. She barely got out of bed. Not long after, she attempted suicide.
My Mum had been the centre of my life. She was an extremely loving, caring mother. I had always felt safe with her. Suddenly, everything changed, and I was utterly lost.
The piano kinda saved me. My music teacher at school, Philip Wilson, gave me permission to use the practice rooms whenever I wanted. Other teachers let me duck out of class when I was struggling, and I’d go to play on an old battered upright. I’d take the cover off and watch as my hands made the hammers hit the strings. If I was angry, the piano would be angry too. If I was sad, it would share my sadness. It’s an amazing instrument.
Andrew: Thank you for sharing that. The emotional pull, if you like, of the piano as a refuge, a safe space, is something I relate to as well. And I think as children growing up, everyone faces their unique challenges, but the piano can be there for them as an anchor maybe?
Garreth: I couldn’t agree more. Music lessons in general, and one-on-one music tuition in particular, has enormous potential to be a force for good in children’s lives. Music is one of very few spaces where emotions aren’t just tolerated, but a crucial part of what we’re trying to produce. It’s sadly rare for kids to spend one-to-one time with an adult who has their best interests at heart, but who isn’t their parent: with an empathetic and well-meaning teacher, this can be incredibly valuable time. I’ve been incredibly fortunate to have a series of very kind teachers (Matthew Clifford, Christine Gilmore, Roger Allen, Detlev Bender to name just a few) and I feel like I have a responsibility to pass on their kindness to my students.
Andrew: And what music were you playing at that time? Had you begun composing?
Garreth: At that time I mainly played the ABRSM syllabus, which became less and less interesting to me as I grew older and the pressure to get good marks grew. Thankfully, my teacher at the time (Matthew Clifford) was a composer. He began showing me how I could identify patterns in the music and rearrange them, or use them to compose something new. It was this that kept me playing the piano; without it, I think I would have given up in my teens, like so many other people do.
Andrew: What steps connected your teenage exploration through to studying music at Oxford University and eventually launching more into composing?
Garreth: At University, I had intensive tutorials in music analysis with Roger Allen, where I began to understand how harmony really worked. This was genuinely thrilling to me; it was like finding a secret code that helped me decipher a beautiful riddle. Before then, I had played the piano like an actor who has learned the lines but doesn’t really understand their meaning.
I dabbled informally in composition at university, but it was mainly as a kind of respite from stress. Oxford is extremely competitive and I rarely felt comfortable with most of my peers, plus I had a couple of difficult romantic relationships, and was still pretty disorientated by what had happened with my Mum. After university I basically dropped out and explored other things for a while, and during that time piano was mainly an escape.
What changed was moving to Germany in 2014 after meeting my now-wife, the artist Anna Salzmann. Our conversations about life, art, and music, and the genuineness and seriousness of her interest in what I had been dabbling in, changed everything. We began working on a collaborative project, and set up a crowdfunding campaign to help pay for it. The crowdfunding was a much bigger success than we expected, which was very exciting and encouraging.
But while we were working on it, my Mum made another serious attempt at taking her life, and this time she died. The project became a place where I could pour all my grief, and it led to a lovely concert where I played for all the people who had supported the fundraiser, and I had a sense that the music really helped bring people together after Mum died. Certainly, it helped me with my grief a great deal.
Andrew: And this has become a powerful theme in your work. Can you tell us more about your album Healing (which I reviewed here)?
Garreth: Healing grew out of a long series of health difficulties that Anna experienced. She is, frankly, very lucky to be alive, and getting there has been full of challenges. She’d been thinking about her healing process for a long time, considering it from many perspectives, and she began painting a series of paintings that capture the sheer complexity of the healing process.
Anyone who’s been through a complex health scare knows that healing isn’t linear: there are times when you feel like you’re moving backwards, or very slowly, or you’re getting sick with new illnesses that might have been triggered by the stress of the first illness. It’s hard.
The art that she made is extraordinarily beautiful. It’s really very dark at times, as you’d expect, but it’s also hopeful and light. I love them, and it was a real pleasure to compose music to complement them. I wrote a 25-minute suite to accompany them, and we made a video where people can experience the art as the music plays.
This was the first album that we released on vinyl, and we worked with a boutique label called Les Disques d’Accalmie who did a beautiful job. We also worked with Nikolas Sideris to make a sheet music and art book, which he released on Editions Musica Ferrum. It’s really beautiful, he was really respectful of Anna’s work, and the resulting book is really gorgeous.
Andrew: It absolutely is, yes, and in every sense a complete work of art! For those who’ve not heard the album, have a listen now:
Andrew: And how about Life Through Loss, which followed more recently?
Garreth: Life Through Loss grew out of a series of conversations I’ve had with many people about grief. My Mum died over a decade ago, and my own grief has changed a lot in that time. It hasn’t gone, but it’s certainly become less intense. Sometimes it feels like a gentle ache, and actually, I’ve grown to quite like that feeling because it reminds me of her. It’s still painful, but it’s a softer pain, and I can live with it.
As I reflected on my grief and spoke to others I became aware that there are aspects of grief that people don’t talk about much, and that don’t fit the standard image of what grief is like. My curiosity grew and led to my training to be a volunteer Grief Companion a few years ago, Since then I talk to grieving people a lot.
The thing that struck me most was the loneliness. Many of these grieving people felt alone; that no-one could understand; that people didn’t want to know; that grief was a burden they just had to carry on their own. I became more and more interested in finding a way to open up conversations about grief in a way that anyone can engage with.
How could I talk about this difficult topic in an appealing way? How could I get people to engage with it without hammering them over the head with misery? It’s a hard balance to strike but I think I’ve managed it. The result is Life Through Loss. Overall, it’s not a sad album. That sounds bizarre, maybe, but it’s true. It’s really an album about love, and the loss that is the flip side of love.
When I perform it live, I talk a little about what it’s about, but I don’t go into too much detail. I just point people in the right direction, so they have a sense of what I was thinking about, and then I let them experience the music and think for themselves about how it connects with their own experiences. That’s important because every grief is different: the grief you might feel when you lose your father is very different to the grief you might feel when you lose a child.
When I do the Life Through Loss concerts, I really love to leave space afterwards to chat with audience members, ideally over a glass of wine or a beer. I’ve heard so many beautiful stories, really wonderful, lovely things, and it’s a real joy to hear them. And of course, it’s also really sad, but underlying all the sadness is love, and I think that helping people remember the love really helps them to move forward.
Andrew: Your music is certainly very uplifting, cathartic perhaps, but not sad… I remember when you brought some of the pieces to a consultation lesson with me at the Thinking Pianist course, and then performing them to the other attendees. And it was a powerful, special moment, recognising the quality of the music, but also sensing that it would really strike a powerful chord with listeners, and on a very personal level.
And it has clearly done that, and reached a huge audience… I believe you’ve had millions of streams. But to what extent does that create a new pressure in terms of creating new music?
Garreth: I have really mixed feelings about this. It obviously feels great to have your work prove to be popular, and the royalties can be really great too. I’m really not complaining, I swear! That being said, I do think there are pressures. I see many composers chasing the numbers, and while I understand why they do it, it can really make you crazy.
Ultimately whether or not you get playlisted is out of your hands. You simply can’t control it, and you can never be sure what will be successful or not. There’s a heavy dose of luck involved, that’s the reality: there are loads of composers out there who deserve more streams, and there is also a load of music out there that deserves far fewer streams than it gets.
Once I’d had a few tracks do really well, I started to feel the pressure to recreate that success, but I also started feeling quite hollow. Composing had always been something I did for pleasure, but now I was turning it into work. And you can love your work, but it is inherently different to a hobby.
In the last few years, I’ve been trying to find a balance between love and work. Sometimes that’s meant focusing on passion projects that the streaming platforms ignore completely, or focusing on topics that are difficult to talk about and so very difficult to “promote”. But I’ve also tried to change my perspective on “work”: I take pride in my craft, I notice smaller and smaller details, and I think deeply about what moves people. Fundamentally I do want people to listen, and to feel something when they listen to my music.
So, I’m trying to find a balance, and Life Through Loss is in that sweet spot. The music is overall very accessible with quite a lot of catchy melodies, but it’s not your bog-standard contemporary piano music with four chords and an Alberti bass: there are some pieces in time signatures like 11/8 and 5/8 and I frequently use modes, modulate or use dissonance when it feels right.
Andrew: Thanks again for sharing that very interesting perspective. I’m sure there will be many who hope to follow your success, and it’s helpful to have an inside insight, a human reflection, on what that is really like.
Since the Life Through Loss album, have you been creating and writing more?
Garreth: My next album, working title Kaleidoscope, should be released fairly soon, with the first single probably coming out in the autumn. I suspect it will both annoy and delight classical music fans. Some of them are going to find it disrespectful, others (hopefully the majority!) are going to find it intriguing and hopefully even inspiring.
I’ll probably play a bit of it for you at the Milton Keynes Piano Celebration and you can tell me whether you’re in the annoyed or delighted camp!
Andrew: Oh, I’m definitely in the delighted camp, from what I know about this one… really creative and fresh! And anything else?
Garreth: I’m also still composing elegies, piano pieces for grieving people that celebrate and honour their lost loved ones. This is a real passion project of mine, and some of them will probably be released as an album after Kaleidoscope.
I’m also working on a series of books for piano teachers with Juan Cabeza and the Piano Safari team. Juan and I met at an awards ceremony in London, where I was nominated for an award for my Piano Creativity site, but which he then won for his Piano Patterns in Harmony course.
Juan and I get on really well, and we were keen to work together. These books will make creativity (composition & improvisation) much more accessible to your average beginner piano student, so we’re really excited to share them!
Andrew: Education work has become a big element of your career alongside composing, and it was a pleasure to be your teacher and mentor when you moved in this direction. Talk more about your Piano Creativity website and teaching work…
Garreth: I’ve always loved teaching, it’s really fun. I feel very blessed!
Piano Creativity grew out of chatting to lots of other teachers and realising that many of them were extremely nervous about teaching any kind of improvisation or composition. There are quite a few good resources out there, and I wanted to help people find them more easily. It’s led to some really interesting work!
The first big project that came out of it is a book called The Ultimate Guide to Piano Chords, which I’ve co-written with Lona Kozik and Ruth Alberici, and which came out just a couple of weeks ago. It’s basically the keyboard harmony course we’ve always wanted, but didn’t exist until now.
We all really love music theory, but we feel like most of the music theory books out there have a tendency to make it feel rather dull. It’s best learnt not by writing, but by doing: by playing and by listening.
We’ve put together a load of resources in a structured curriculum that will give students lots of opportunities to actually play harmony at the piano in a way that is both fun and useful. We’ve had great feedback so far and we’re really excited to see where it takes us.
Andrew: I’m looking forward to finding out more, and am looking forward to you writing a Guest Post for Pianodao soon.
And then of course, we’re excited and very much looking forward to hearing you perform your music at the MK celebration.
Earlier in the day there will be performances by children and adults of all ages, a non-competitive celebration of piano music. Do you have any advice for nervous performers and those playing to an audience for the very first time?
Garreth: I used to have intense stage fright, so much so that I didn’t perform for over a decade. What changed for me was three things.
Firstly, it’s amazing how helpful good posture is. (I can hear my teenage self rolling his eyes at this, but it’s true!) When you are on the stage, have a straight back, stand with your feet firmly rooted in the ground, and breathe deeply. This helps to ground us and it’s powerful.
When you’re at the piano, concentrating on what it feels like to physically connect with the instrument is a remarkably effective way of helping us focus. Check that your weight is evenly distributed in your sit-bones and your feet. Feel your good posture, from the top of your head to the base of your spine. Most importantly, feel your fingers sinking deeply into the keybed. Actively thinking about the physical connection with the instrument can be a powerful tool.
Secondly, never perform something that is at the edge of your ability level. Perform something that you can play correctly at least 95% of the time when you’re playing at home. Your audience can’t enjoy the music if they are picking up on your stress!
Thirdly, I really think you need to really love what you’re performing. If you don’t care about the music you’re playing, or you’re only doing it for the applause afterwards, you’re performing from a place of weakness.
To use your own phrase, Andrew, there has to be a strong intrinsic motivation to share the music. Why are you doing this? Applause is not enough to sustain interest in performing long term. There has to be something more, and I think the only truly worthwhile reason for doing it is for love.
When we truly love every aspect of music making, it’s a profoundly beautiful thing. We love the music; we love how we feel when we play it; we love sharing it with other people, and we know that our audiences sense that love and are moved by it. It’s a magical thing!
Andrew: Yes, Yes, Yes! And knowing your story, and how much your music means to you and so many others around the world just adds to our excitement!
Thank you for your openness, for sharing with Pianodao readers today!
Garreth Brooke • Official Website
Piano Creativity website
Come and hear Garreth perform in Milton Keynes!
Saturday 21st November 2026
