Jon Hopkins is an amazing pianist, producer, composer, dj, electronica artist… you name it… he is!

I met him at The Bakery, Coldplay‘s studio in London, at the end of 2006. He was brought in by Brian Eno to become a key element for the sound of Viva La Vida Or Death And All His Friends.

Our ‘collaboration’ began I would say as the two of us were just fiddling about in the Bakery’s live room, Jon with his keyboard and me with my violectra, while the band was talking with Brian in the mixer room.

Chris heard what we were doing and basically asked us to keep going and started recording.

That improvisation became the intro for Violet Hill, first single of the album.

During the summer of 2007 I would visit Jon at his studio in Hackney, to do ‘our’ thing, while the boys were working at Air and there was not a room left in the building for me and Jon to mess about.

In one of these occasions, it was recorded what then became a very gentle but beautiful violin line for Vessel, one of the songs of his new album Insides.

In December 2008, Jon asked me to join him on stage at the O2 Arena to support Coldplay for their three sold out concerts in London.

We repeated that slot, supporting them in Japan in February 2009.

Nowadays we play together from time to time, for some of his most important live gigs.