Earl Wild has been on the most important figures and influences in my professional life - having met him when I was 17 years old at the recital of my first important teacher, Belgian pianist Suzanne Shader, at one of her recitals at Alice Tully Hall at Lincoln Center in New York.

He and I met again almost a decade later when I became one of his students in the Doctoral programme at the Manhattan School of Music.

While it can be facile to give insights as to his genius, I am unavoidably biased in his favour, so in offering only a few guidelines I invite you to listen to his playing and his own compositions (no small galaxy of music there) to form your own opinion as I have no doubt you may find some resonance in his artistry.

Earl Wild’s physical ability to move over the keys is legendary (to say the least) and for this he’s been globally praised - but what elevates him even higher is his musicianship; the ability to transform the playing of notes on a wooden instrument into an experience that touches and influences the listener.

So I invite you, through your listening, to hear for yourself the playing, the music and the man who has resonated so deeply with me all my life, as I hope you may find some resonance and warmth in his good company as well.

This piano transcription of “The Little Island” - from one of Rachmaninoff’s songs for voice and piano - is nothing short of an oasis of sound.

But despite what may appear to be an intimate liquid setting, it is no small respite for camel, rider or desert caravan for here we find trees for shade with fruit for refreshment, a cool breeze as respite from the sun’s heat, lush green to comfort eye and foot and vibrant colours of yellows, reds and white to replenish the sun weary eye; an “Am Shere” on the piano.

The original song has a piano part that is sparse, giving the voice to provide the liquidity implied by the words - but Wild has has extended its part by supplying those notes, now sung by the piano, which confirm the inferences found in the poem.

The challenge for the piano and pianist is to remain secondary to the melody and the message; that comfort, whether through a desert of hot sand or fatigued mind, is always to be found in the most unexpected of places.