This album wouldn’t have happened without my beautiful son Leo. I was performing whilst six months pregnant with Leo, when somebody in the audience came and told me that my voice sounded different. He said I should get myself in the studio and do some recording.

Paul made the same observation and we both thought it would be a good idea to capture this. So we picked some songs that we were both passionate about, but had no plan of making an album. We just wanted to document these performances.

It wasn’t until we both sat down to listen to the material that we noticed there was an atmosphere and a certain stillness around the songs, which is reflected in the title ‘Silent Spaces’. At that point we made a decision to pick out the best tunes and make this CD.

After giving birth to Leo I was of course very pre-occupied, but was delighted when Paul suggested recording three additional pieces. We also thought it would add extra sparkle to the album to include cello. With this in mind Paul came up with the lovely arrangement of ‘Amazon river’ to feature Liz Hanks, who I have worked with several times before on other projects.

With the exception of ‘Blue rose’, ‘Amazon river’ and ‘Turning of the leaves’, these recordings were put down in the last month before Leo was born.