Niklas is my oldest son and loves playing music. Not sure whether he prefers the guitar or the piano. So glad he contributed one of his typical energetic piano pieces to this album. He didn’t seem to be too unhappy after I added guitar and bass.

When not playing music, Niklas is active (mainly in Belgium and The Netherlands) as a consultant in all sorts of complex matters relating to supply chains.

Tobias is my youngest son and is equally addicted to music. He spent four years in Greece providing legal support to refugees. The piece he contributed to this album clearly shows the influence of long nights out in Athens. I think he was rather pleased on how his piece was arranged with counterpoint and harmony while preserving the essence of its mood. I think a full version with Greek lyrics is forthcoming …

In day-to-day life Tobias is a lawyer in the City of London, still focusing on immigration law.

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Dirk and I used to hang out in the same area near Antwerp when we were young lads, and we played in the same rock band, where he played the trumpet and was the singer (not simultaneously!). We enjoyed singing in close harmony, and we were certainly big fans of the French chanson style.

Occasionally we wrote songs together and one of these was called «On voudrait vivre sans problèmes». We used it in a musical (which was never produced) and wrote a large bunch of other pieces to accompany the story of a chap who wanted to sail through life without problems. One sequence of that musical had seven variations on the «On voudrait vivre» melody, and the Midnight Variation is one of those. It just refuses to leave my head ….

In the meantime, Dirk is retired but is still the driving force behind a charity that keeps the memory alive of some of his famous ancestors (Frans Mortelmans, the painter, and Lodewijk Mortelmans, the composer).