LONDON PIANO FESTIVAL

London Piano Festival is delighted to return to Kings Place from 5-8 October 2023. Four days of classical and jazz piano performances – plus a masterclass - will see Festival debuts from star soloist Clare Hammond and piano master Vadym Kholodenko. Returning artists include Danny Driver, Lucy Parham and Leszek Możdżer, as well as the Festival’s Artistic Directors Katya Apekisheva and Charles Owen.

 

We will open this year’s Festival with a four-hands programme celebrating our longstanding collaboration as performers and co-Artistic Directors. The recital features Rachmaninov’s Suites No. 1 and 2 for Two Pianos, his Symphonic Dances, and Eleanor Alberga’s Two-Piano Suite, written to celebrate the 25th Anniversary of Jamaica’s Independence in 1987 [5 Oct].

 

Ukrainian master pianist and 2013 Van Cliburn winner Vadym Kholodenko makes his Festival – and Kings Place – debut with a programme exploring music through the eras. The programme centres around three of the best-loved piano composers - Beethoven, Liszt and Haydn - alongside Thomas Adès’ magical soundscape ‘Traced Overhead’ and fellow Ukrainian Valentyn Silvestrov’s Bagatelles [6 Oct].

 

Internationally-renowned British pianists Danny Driver and Clare Hammond join forces with Charles Owen and Katya Apekisheva for ‘Ligeti Plus’, a programme in honour of the centenary of the composer’s birth, exploring music by Ligeti and associated composers including his star pupil Unsuk Chin, and inspiration, Conlon Nancarrow [7 Oct]. That afternoon, Danny Driver will run a dedicated masterclass focusing on Ligeti's Etudes and supported by Help Musicians [7 Oct].
 

The London Piano Festival has often featured jazz in its line-up. This year, we welcome back the outstanding Polish pianist, composer and producer, Leszek Możdżer for a solo improvised set [7 Oct].

 

The Festival closes with Elégie – Rachmaninov: A Heart in Exile from British pianist Lucy Parham, which originally premiered at Kings Place in 2016. Actor Tim McInnerny narrates Rachmaninov’s trajectory from his youth in Russia to his self-imposed exile in 1917 and his death in California in 1943 with verbal content from letters and diaries alongside evocative solo piano pieces from Rachmaninov and his contemporaries [8 Oct].

 

Katya Apekisheva and Charles Owen, Co-Artistic Directors of the London Piano Festival