Pianodao

Kristina Arakelyan’s ‘Musical Vegetable Patch’

Selected and Reviewed by Andrew Eales
Find out more: About Pianodao Reviews

Armenian-British composer Kristina Arakelyan is rapidly gaining recognition as a leading voice in contemporary classical music, with works performed by top artists in concert halls worldwide. She is also an accomplished concert pianist, and in my view her 2025 album Dreamland, featuring her own solo works, confirms her as an important pianist-composer for our time.

Readers may recognise Arakelyan from the updated Piano Time method series reviewed here, and be familiar with her beautiful piece Daydream, which appeared in the ABRSM Grade 2 syllabus in 2023-24. In this review I will consider her latest foray into piano education, a slim publication from publishers Stainer & Bell.

The Musical Vegetable Patch bears the lofty subtitle ‘introducing the classical music periods to early-grade pianists’, and includes at its heart six elementary pieces suitable for players at around UK Grades 1-2. Each showcases a different musical style, and is blessed with a title that mixes the name of a famous composer with, erm, a vegetable.

This highly imaginative and educational collection aims to enthuse youngsters while gently introducing them to music periods, styles, and composers. And each page includes a quirky, hand-painted ink and watercolour illustration by Rosie Brooks (also of Piano Time fame). Let’s find out how this distinctive and nutritious concept plays out…

10 Piano Resolutions for 2026

Pianodao Articles • Full Archive

Supporting Your Piano Pathway
Written by Andrew Eales

HAPPY NEW YEAR!
As one year turns to the next, it is customary to reflect on the changes we want to make for the better as we move forward.

As we do so, let’s first pause to take stock of the last twelve months, considering both our triumphs and disappointments. An honest evaluation of where we are in our journey enables us to make positive, realistic, actionable resolutions for the coming year. With that in mind, I invite you to consider the following:

What moments at the piano did you find encouraging this year?
Can you name three pieces that you especially enjoyed playing?
Can you think of three pieces of Active Repertoire which you can play at a standard you are happy with, right now?
What challenges have you overcome over these last twelve months, and what strengths were revealed?
What habits and routines supported your practice, and which proved less helpful, or even draining?
Which aspects of your piano playing life do you want to carry forward into 2026, and which would you prefer to let go of?
How would you describe your piano playing at the end of 2025?
What is the single thing about your piano playing that you would most like to improve in 2026?

As usual at the start of each year, I would like to offer a few general ideas for New Year piano resolutions that some might want to adopt. Having reflected on the questions above, try to personalise or consider your own goals…

2025 • The Pianodao Top Ten

Pianodao Articles • Full Archive

Supporting Your Piano Pathway
Written by Andrew Eales

In the past year, I published 80 new articles and reviews on Pianodao, and as the year ends, here’s my annual list of the ten that resonated most with readers.

Beyond the site itself, 2025 has brought many professional highlights, including the publication of the Willis Student Recital Collection in the Spring, and more recently collaborating with Jack Pepper in compiling and writing our anthology of Music We Might Have Played.

I have enjoyed working with my regular students, giving consultations, leading courses, working with teachers, and speaking at events. I completed my two-year term as President of the Art of Piano Education Awards in the Spring, and ended the year on a high with the positive success of this year’s Milton Keynes Piano Celebration.

As for Pianodao, in this tenth anniversary year I have devoted much time to reorganising the site’s content to make it even more accessible. You can now discover the full archive of free articles by browsing popular piano playing and teaching topics:

I am in the process of similarly updating the Pianodao Music Library to enable users to find music reviews by style, period, genre, and composer, in addition to difficulty level.

If you found Pianodao’s articles, reviews, and advice useful this year, please consider making a one-time donation to support the site’s continuing maintenance and growth.

John Rutter • Complete Piano Album

Pianodao Music Library

Selected and Reviewed by Andrew Eales
Find out more: About Pianodao Reviews

One of the most extraordinarily popular and successful British composers of his generation, John Rutter’s choral works, anthems, hymns and carols are beloved the world over for their distinctive mix of French choral, English pastoral, and American popular influences.

John Rutter has enjoyed a long career at the pinnacle of the English choral world, from his appearance as a chorister in the 1963 recording of Britten’s War Requiem conducted by the composer, through his time at Cambridge and his numerous prestigious appointments and accomplishments up to the present day.

As he enjoys his 80th birthday year, Rutter is rightly considered a national treasure, and his publishers OUP Music are celebrating with a fresh compilation of his two recent solo piano albums in one superb book of 16 pieces, as well as the publication of his piano concerto, Reflections.

The Complete John Rutter Piano Album brings together his transcriptions first published as Piano Collection: A Flower Remembered in 2020, along with those that make up the subsequent John Rutter Christmas Piano Album.

For fans of his music, the Complete John Rutter Piano Album is an obvious and more cost-effective choice, so the review that follows draws from and replaces my earlier reviews of the initial, separate publications.

Bluey: First Ever Piano Book

Educational Resources

Selected and Reviewed by Andrew Eales
Find out more: About Pianodao Reviews

Since its launch in 2018, the Australian animated series Bluey has conquered the pre-school world, while winning multiple awards, critical acclaim, and praise for its positive messages, wholesome family values, and focus on playful childhood learning.

Created and written by Joe Brumm, Bluey has spawned a stage show, video game, upcoming feature length movie, and an avalanche of merchandising that includes toys, books, an album of music from the show, and now the Bluey First Ever Piano Book, written by the show’s music supervisor and composer Joff Bush, and published by Faber Music.

Bluey front cover and sample pages NEW with logos — Bluey First Ever Piano Book

The Bluey First Ever Piano Book is, like the television show, aimed at pre-school children, designed for early informal learning without an instructor, and for shared enjoyment by children with their parents. As Faber put it,

“This book is for beginners to play with their favourite grown-up. No musical know-how is required. You’ll be helped along the way by Busker (AKA Bluey composer, Joff Bush). Have fun making Bluey music magic together!”

Bluey First Ever Piano Book is unlike anything I have previously reviewed, so I began by watching a few episodes of the show (purely for research purposes, of course). But as a piano educator, what’s my opinion of the book?

Winter Piano Anthology

Pianodao Music Library

Selected and Reviewed by Andrew Eales
Find out more: About Pianodao Reviews

The Faber Music Piano Anthology series of deluxe bumper books have proven one of the popular publishing successes of recent years, and certainly these robust collections combine excellent value for money with a compelling mix of piano music for late intermediate to advanced players.

With more than a dozen titles now in the series, the anthologies cover a wide range of musical styles and tastes. Some home in on specific genres, such as pop ballads, jazz standards, and piano duets, while others mix core and lesser-known classics, piano arrangements, and relaxed contemporary solos.

For a look at previous titles, you can explore the series here, but let’s now turn to the latest addition, a seasonal chilled Winter Piano Anthology…

Christmas Imaginations

The Christmas Shortlist

Selected and reviewed by Andrew Eales
Find out more: About Pianodao Reviews

Growing numbers of music publishers are embracing the trend of releasing multi-composer compilations of new piano music, a formula which offers them plenty of scope to champion different names, showcasing a variety of contrasting styles and individual voices.

Earlier this year I praised The Sonatina Collection from Hal Leonard, which features nine inspiring late intermediate works by some of American’s leading contemporary composers. Many of the same names now reappear in a fresh anthology of Christmas Carol arrangements from the publisher.

Christmas Imaginations features 16 familiar melodies reimagined in a variety of styles from jolly jazz to more lyrical ‘poignant preludes’, and the collection is again well suited to late intermediate players.

Winter Repertoire Challenge

Active Repertoire Project

Play With Fluency And Confidence
Written by Andrew Eales

As winter sets in, enveloping everything in its frosty embrace, we can find it challenging to stay motivated and inspired. The shorter days, longer nights, and biting cold can make it tempting to hibernate until spring!

The human response, across cultures and continents, has long been to make space and create opportunities for communities to come together: shared festivals and feast days that brighten our darkest months.

Musicians have always had a significant part to play in vibrant community life, and for piano players this is a time of the year in which our Active Repertoire may thus feature prominently in our music-making…

Christmas Boogie and Jazz

The Christmas Shortlist

Selected and reviewed by Andrew Eales
Find out more: About Pianodao Reviews

Brent Edstrom’s stunning series of Jazz Piano Solos collections has reached its sixty seventh volume with Hal Leonard’s publication of the new Boogie Woogie Christmas.

I have previously praised several titles from this series, and in this review I am going to look at the new addition as well as recapping previous three more Christmas books in the series that I have looked at in the past, bringing them together here to help readers decide where to start and which to choose.

Together, these four cover an extraordinary amount of ground, freshly dusted with deep, crisp, and evenly festive brilliance. These Jazz Piano Solos will undoubtedly keep advanced players engaged with their superbly stylish boogie and jazzed up reimaginings of the Christmas canon…

Ivana Gavrić • A Piano Journey

The Pianodao Interview

Pianists in Conversation with Andrew Eales

Ivana Gavrić has attracted international acclaim for her interpretations of a broad range of repertoire and storytelling programming, her playing described as ‘electrifying’ (BBC Music Magazine) and ‘impressive, insightful…ravishing’ (Washington Post).

We are delighted that Ivana will be our special guest recitalist at the Milton Keynes Piano Celebration 2025.

And on the eve of the release of her sixth album, Throwback to Dance, it has been a pleasure to catch up with her for a chat about her piano journey so far (we first met when we both taught at The Thinking Pianist course last year)…