London Piano Festival at Kings Place, London.
Dates: Friday, October 04, 2024 - Sunday, October 06, 2024
More details
We have received the following press release;
Lineup for the ninth annual London Piano Festival at Kings Place revealed.
Lineup for the ninth annual London Piano Festival at Kings Place revealed, with performances by Festival Founders Katya Apekisheva and Charles Owen in addition to Lara Melda, Rose McLachlan, Kit Armstrong, Michael Wollny, Reinis Zariņš, Susan Tomes and the Carducci String Quartet.
4-6 October 2024 | Kings Place, London
#LondonPianoFestival
Mozart gala featuring three of Mozart’s finest early piano concerti with Katya Apekisheva, Lara Melda and Charles Owen accompanied by the Carducci String Quartet
Messiaen’s Vingt Regards sur l’enfant Jésus by Reinis Zariņš in his Festival debut
A two-piano improvised set from classical pianist Kit Armstrong and jazz pianist Michael Wollny
22 pieces inspired by Chopin’s 22 Nocturnes, an anthology of works written by women composers, with Rose McLachlan
A centenary celebration of Fauré and his contemporaries in solo and duet works with Katya Apekisheva and Charles Owen
A recital of works written by female piano composers over the past two centuries with Susan Tomes
Pianists and co-Artistic Directors Katya Apekisheva and Charles Owen reveal another dynamic lineup for the ninth London Piano Festival (LPF) which returns to Kings Place from 4-6 October 2024. Three days of classical and jazz piano performances will see Festival debuts from exceptional pianists Lara Melda, Kit Armstrong, Rose McLachlan, Michael Wollny and Reinis Zariņš. Other instruments feature in the Festival lineup for the first time with the esteemed Carducci String Quartet performing in the Mozart gala, and pianist and writer Susan Tomes returns to close this year’s Festival. Under 30s tickets are available for all concerts at a reduced price of £8.50. The Festival is delighted to be working with International Piano magazine as its media partner for the ninth year running.
Co-Artistic Directors Katya Apekisheva and Charles Owen commented, “We are delighted to return to the beautiful space at Kings Place and to welcome so many outstanding pianists for their Festival debut this year. In our ninth edition, there is a particular focus on women composers – Susan Tomes highlights historic works, whilst Rose McLachlan brings us 22 new pieces, and our joint Fauré recital spotlights the works of his female contemporaries, Mel Bonis and Cecile Chaminade. We also include other instruments in our lineup for the first time with the superb Carducci Quartet – a much-anticipated new strand to the LPF journey!”
The Festival Founders Katya Apekisheva and Charles Owen open this year’s Festival with a Mozart Gala, featuring three of Mozart’s finest early piano concerti. Apekisheva performs Mozart’s Piano Concerto in A Major K414, whilst Owen takes on his Concerto in C Major K415. Lara Melda, the winner of the 2010 BBC Young Musician of the Year competition, makes her Festival debut with Mozart’s Piano Concerto in Eb Major K449. They are joined by the internationally renowned Carducci String Quartet in special arrangements of these works for string quartet [4 Oct].
Apekisheva and Owen take to the stage together once again with a Fauré Salon 100 programme, celebrating the composer’s centenary year. The recital, designed to evoke the intimate setting of a 19th-century Parisian salon, spotlights Fauré alongside his composer contemporaries, Mel Bonis and Cecile Chaminade. Apekisheva and Owen will alternate solo compositions with works for piano duet, representing their longstanding collaboration as performers, and concluding with Fauré’s ever-popular Dolly Suite [5 Oct].
Rose McLachlan, winner of the Chopin Prize at both Chetham’s and the Royal Northern College of Music, makes her Festival – and Kings Place – debut with 22 pieces inspired by Chopin’s 22 Nocturnes. McLachlan conceived this new anthology as a collection of works by talented, but as yet unpublished, female composers. 16 works were chosen from 80 scores submitted by women composers around the world, with the remaining six commissioned by established composers, such as Zoe Rahman [5 Oct].
The London Piano Festival typically features jazz in its lineup, and in Armstrong meets Wollny, two world-class performers come together for a special collaboration: classical pianist Kit Armstrong and jazz pianist Michael Wollny. Both artists will return to Kings Place in their Festival debut for a unique solo and duo improvisation set [5 Oct].
Award-winning Latvian pianist Reinis Zariņš makes his London Piano Festival debut with Olivier Messiaen’s epic cycle, Vingt Regards sur l’enfant Jésus, composed during the darkest days of the Second World War. Writer and broadcaster Stephen Johnson will explore the historical context of the work in an insightful pre-concert talk [6 Oct].
The Festival closes with Women and the Piano, a recital from pianist and writer Susan Tomes. Taking her new book of the same name as a starting point Susan performs a series of compositions by women composers over the last 200 years, including Clara Schumann, Fanny Mendelssohn, Cecile Chaminade and Amy Beach. There will be a post-concert Q&A with Susan hosted by Tim Parry, Editor of International Piano magazine and Deputy Editor of Gramophone magazine [6 Oct].
The London Piano Festival was founded by pianists Katya Apekisheva and Charles Owen in 2016 and takes place every October at Kings Place, London. Previous visiting artists have included Alfred Brendel, Alexandra Dariescu, Julian Joseph, Gabriela Montero, Stephen Kovacevich, Jason Rebello, Vadym Kholodenko, Leszek Możdżer and Kathryn Stott, amongst many others. The Festival has also commissioned several new works for two pianos, working with composers including Sally Beamish, Jonathan Dove, Elena Langer and Nico Muhly.
Full programme
Friday 5 October, 7:30pm | Kings Place, Hall One
A Mozart Gala
Mozart Piano Concerto in A, K414 (KA)
Mozart Piano Concerto in C, K415 (CO)
Mozart Piano Concerto in E, K449 (LM)
Katya Apekisheva, Charles Owen and Lara Melda piano
TBC double bass | Carducci String Quartet
Tickets | £20 – £50 + under 30s and concessions
Saturday 5 October, 12pm | Kings Place, Hall One
Fauré 100: Fin De Siècle
Chaminade Serenade d’automne
Chaminade La chaise a Porteurs (CO & KA)
Chaminade Automne (CO)
Fauré Nocturne No. 6 in D flat, Op. 63 (CO)
Fauré Barcarolle No. 5 in F Sharp minor, Op. 44 (CO)
Fauré Nocturne No. 1 in E flat minor Op. 33/1 (KA)
Fauré Nocturne No. 3 in A flat, Op. 33/3 (KA)
Fauré Impromptu No. 2 in F minor Op. 31 (KA)
Mel Bonis Melisande & Omphale (KA)
Fauré Dolly Suite, Op. 56 (CO & KA)
Katya Apekisheva and Charles Owen piano
Tickets | £22 + under 30s and concessions
Saturday 5 October, 3pm | Kings Place, Hall Two
Rose Mclachlan: Twenty-Two Nocturnes
Agnieszka Lasko Autumn
Nitzan Vardi As They Come And Go
Alanna Crouch
Dianna Neufeld For a Winter’s Night
Marlowe Carruth Pregando
Wendy Edwards Beardall-Norton Nocturne for Lora
Jennifer Bowman
Heather Hammond Thinking of Frederic
Caroline Tyler
June Armstrong Sweet Sorrow
Helen Walker Like the Night
Victoria Proudler Triste
Lucy Hackett The Moth
Caroline Wright Reflections
Stephenie Leung La ballerine solitaire
Katie Jenkins Cerddorieth i Bronwyn
Charlotte Butler Moonlight on the Waves
Charlotte Botterill Waves Collide with the Precipice…
Nicole DiPaolo
Olga Berman Elegy
Nancy Litten Fred and Bertie’s Nighttime Stroll
Zoe Rahman
Rose McLachlan piano
Tickets | £18 + under 30s and concessions
Saturday 5 October, 7:30pm | Kings Place, Hall One
Armstrong meets Wollny
Michael Wollny and Kit Armstrong piano
Tickets | £22 – £35 + under 30s and concessions
Sunday 6 October, 11:00 | Kings Place, Hall Two
Pre-Concert Talk: Messiaen’s Vingt Regards sur l’enfant Jésus
Stephen Johnson speaker
Tickets | FREE, but a ticket for the concert is required
Sunday 6 October, 12pm | Kings Place, Hall One
Messiaen: Vingt Regards Sur L’enfant Jésus
Messiaen Vingt Regards sur l’enfant Jésus
Reinis Zariņš piano
Tickets | £20-40 + under 30s and concessions
Sunday 6 October, 3pm | Kings Place, Hall Two
Susan Tomes: Women And The Piano
Marianna Martinez Sonata in A
Hélène de Montgeroult Etude No. 106 in B
Maria Szymanowska Caprice sur la Romance de Joconde
Fanny Mendelssohn ‘Mai’ and ‘Juli’ from Das Jah
Clara Schumann Notturno, Op. 6, No. 2
Romance, Op. 21, No. 3
Teresa Carreño Un Bal en Rêve
Amy Beach Dreaming, Op. 15, No. 3
Cecile Chaminade Guitare
Susan Tomes piano
Tickets | £22 + under 30s and concessions
http://www.londonpianofestival.com
Kings Place, 90 York Way, King’s Cross, London, N1 9AG
Tickets
Under 30s tickets are available for all concerts (£8.50)
Kings Place Box Office: 020 7520 1490
Biographies
Charles Owen –
Described by Gramophone magazine as “one of the finest British pianists of his generation”, Charles Owen has enjoyed an extensive international career performing a wide-ranging repertoire to outstanding critical acclaim. Charles Owen is a Professor of Piano at the Guildhall School in London and was appointed Steinway & Sons UK Ambassador in 2016.
Katya Apekisheva
Katya Apekisheva, described as being a “profoundly gifted artist” by Gramophone magazine, is one of Europe’s most renowned pianists, in demand internationally as both a soloist and as a chamber musician. She has been marked out as a pianist of exceptional gifts, performing with many of the world’s leading orchestras, and has received widespread critical acclaim for her interpretations. Katya is a Professor of Piano at The Guildhall School of Music and Drama.
Lara Melda
Lara Melda won the BBC Young Musician 2010 competition, performing Saint-Saëns Piano Concerto No. 2 in the final round with Vasily Petrenko and the BBC National Orchestra of Wales in Cardiff. Amongst many venues in the UK and abroad, she has performed at the BBC Proms, the Wigmore Hall, and the International Music Festival in Istanbul. In 2022, she curated a critically acclaimed multi-sensory Van Gogh immersive concert experience in collaboration with Exhibition Hub.
Carducci String Quartet
The award-winning Carducci Quartet is internationally acclaimed as one of the most accomplished and versatile ensembles of today. Founded in 1997, the ensemble has won numerous international competitions, including the USA Concert Artists Guild International Competition, and First Prize at Finland’s Kuhmo International Chamber Music Competition.
Rose McLachlan
Born into a family of musicians in Cheshire, Rose McLachlan began piano lessons with her father, Murray McLachlan, aged 7. In 2016, Rose was the overall winner of the Scottish International Youth Prize at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland and in 2017 was awarded the Yamaha Prize in the EPTA UK competition. She has won the Chopin Prize at both Chetham’s and at the Royal Northern College of Music. In November 2022, Rose was awarded the Musician’s Company Silver Medal.
Kit Armstrong
Born in 1992 in California, USA, Kit Armstrong studied physics at California State University, later chemistry and mathematics at the University of Pennsylvania and mathematics at Imperial College London. He has built a formidable career as a solo pianist since, performing in major international venues with some of the world’s finest orchestras. He has also developed a broad compositional oeuvre of solo, vocal, chamber and symphonic works.
Michael Wollny
Michael Wollny has established himself as one of the most important figures in contemporary European jazz. He has won numerous awards in Germany and beyond, including a ‘Choc de l’annee’ from Jazzman (France), a Ronnie Scott’s Jazz Award, and Album of the Year from Jazzwise and The Times for Weltentraum (2014).
Reinis Zariņš
Equally at home in classical and contemporary repertoire, Reinis Zariņš’s passion lies in the crafting of conceptual programmes that encourage interaction between music, history, and philosophy. He has performed as a concerto soloist, recitalist and chamber musician throughout Europe and North America, and has won Latvia’s Grand Music Award five times.
Stephen Johnson
Stephen Johnson is a composer, writer and broadcaster. Since his first appearance on Radio 3’s CD Review in 1987, he has taken part in several hundred radio programmes, especially on BBC Radio 3, 4 and World Service.
Susan Tomes
Susan Tomes has won numerous awards as a pianist, both on the concert platform and in the recording studio. She grew up in Edinburgh and was the first woman to take a degree in music at King’s College, Cambridge, when co-education arrived at the college after 400 years. She is also a writer, and has written several acclaimed books, including the multiple award-winning The Piano: A History in 100 Pieces. Her seventh book, Women and the Piano – a History in Fifty Lives, was released in March this year.
About Kings Place
Kings Place is an open, multi-arts venue, presenting an adventurous and critically-acclaimed programme, with words and music at its heart. Every year we curate a series of festivals to engage a breadth of different communities. We are a place where many audiences belong, a place where people connect with their passion and no-one is lost in the crowd.
Kings Place was developed from a generous act of philanthropy. Driven by a belief that arts and culture are a fundamental part of a thriving city – our work is as vibrant as our location in King’s Cross. We are independently-funded and generate income through ticket sales and the staging of world-class conferences and events.
We are rooted in partnership and have developed a collaborative community of resident partners and artistic associates. By opening our doors, people and creativity can flourish. We provide stages for artists, space for local communities and young musicians, share our home with partners, and offer audiences unforgettable, shared experiences.
We are Kings Place, the cultural pulse of King’s Cross.
http://www.kingsplace.co.uk