Gershwin, Rachmaninov, Debussy and more - Warren Mailley Smith

Drive Featured Album, starting Monday 30 November 2015 after 6pm.

The award-winning concert pianist Warren Mailley-Smith has been making considerable waves in the classical music world in the past five years and has some rather prominent personages among his fans: he has had more than 30 invitations to perform for the Royal Family at Buckingham Palace, Highgrove House and Sandringham.   

A favourite with audiences (not just Royal ones) for his down to earth persona and self-depreciating sense of humour, Malley-Smith is well-suited to the music of Gershwin which he delivers with the requisite charm and panache.

But it’s not just the evergreen Rhapsody in Blue that captures the attention here. The collection opens with a brisk rendition of Rachmaninov’s arrangement of Rimsky-Korsakov’s Flight of the Bumblebee. There’s also a suitably atmospheric Gymnopodie No. 3 by Satie, the less well-knwon Souvenirs d’Andalousie by Gottschalk, Beethoven’s Für Elise and Grieg’s joyful Wedding Day at Troldhaugen.

Joyful crowd pleasers all, that show Mailley-Smith’s notable skill and verve.