The gift of a new Yamaha piano from the Friends of Bexhill Hospital has enabled them to launch a series of recitals for patients and friends.

The inaugural recital was given this morning by Raya Humphreys, following a brief introduction by the Chaplain, Rev Neville Barnett, who stressed the importance of the arts in recovery.

Raya Humphreys is a post-graduate student of the Royal Academy of Music and chose a programme of works by Schubert and Chopin. She opened with Schubert’s Impromptus Op90, the first of these slowly and quietly impressing itself upon us and taking over the spaces around us. What had been an active, and at times noisy, environment fell quiet and calm under the influence of her playing. She produced a lovely sense of rubato in the second impromptu and a gentle romanticism in the third. The final impromptu had a darker fluidity above the security which lies in the left hand.

She concluded the recital with three short works by Chopin, each finely crafted and in keeping with the intimacy and warmth she had created for us.

The photograph shows Raya Humphreys with Cardiologist Dr Richard Wray and Bexhill Hospital chaplain the Rev Neville Barnett, who have been closely involved with the movement to provide Arts within Healthcare.

The next recital will be on 18 October when Gabriel Barnett will play for us and in November there will be a recital by harpist Fiona Hosford. Close connections are being forged with local music schools and colleges to enable gifted young players to perform at the Irvine Unit over the next year.