Pianist/composer Luke Howard bares his soul on Open Heart Story. Solo piano intimacy sits alongside uplifting works for string orchestra, all mingled with haunting electronic effects, as he explores themes of fragmented relationships, childhood memories and growing older. Howard evokes the spiritual world of composer Arvo Pärt in “Bear Story I” with its bell-like motifs, and draws on the crystalline beauty of the Baroque for the spine-tingling “A Long Life”. Strings and synths combine for “Remembering My Childhood”, while both the piano and orchestral versions of aching elegy “Hymn” are deeply moving.