In my gradual return to fully notated composing over the last couple of years, I began writing what I thought would be a sequel to 'Book of Trees', a group of piano miniatures I wrote in 2015. As it happens, in coming back to some of the harmonic and gestural ideas I explored in that piece, the writing quickly became something else. So, for a little while I've been developing a series of contemporary piano nocturnes, some of which I premiered back in December as part of 'Empty Dreaming' in Manchester. I've really been enjoying the process of sitting in more 'pianistic' compositional spaces, although the cycle as a whole explores a range of soundworlds - some pieces featuring looping and electronics, some more dense cluster material, some playing with extended tonalities, others more abstracted and pointillistic. Some are more fixed, in terms of score. Some are centred around improvisation. 'Gestures of Night' is (I'm fairly sure) the opening in this cycle of loosely related nocturnal piano pieces. It's really a set of beginnings, introducing various fragmentary materials which play with depth, resonance, pulled and stretched melodies. Having finally got round to writing up the score (most of the pieces are improvised or recorded and transcribed after), I'm hoping to start sharing more of these nocturne pieces soon.