If you missed our Digital Piano Festival on Friday 13th November, you can now watch it ON DEMAND.

This unique Digital Festival curated to inspire the next generation of artists and industry professionals, featured a Q&A with legendary Grammy nominated composer and singer/songwriter Rufus Wainwright, a keynote speech by broadcaster and founder of Chineke! Orchestra Chi-chi Nwanoku OBE, a masterclass with Head of Keyboard at the Royal College of Music Professor Vanessa Latarche, recitals by trailblazing pianist and BBC Young Musician of the Year Martin James Bartlett and Hastings International Piano Concerto Competition Prizewinner Maxim Kinasov and an industry panel featuring The Managing Director of Steinway and Sons Craig Terry, Creative Director of Wise Music Publishing Gill Graham and other industry leaders.

Book now, watch later. Available until 31 December.

BOOK TICKETS

FESTIVAL SCHEDULE

Vanessa Latarche Masterclass

Rachmaninoff Etude tableau Op.33 No. 8 in G minor (student Amiri Harewood)
Liszt: Transcendental Etudes No. 4: ‘Mazeppa’  (student Jacky Zhang)

Maxim Kinasov
recital

Franck / Bauer – Prelude, Fugue and Variation, Op.18
Rachmaninoff – Etude-tableau No. 2 in C Major, Op.33
Rachmaninoff – Etude-tableau No. 3 in C minor, Op.33
Rachmaninoff – Etude-tableau No. 9 in C-sharp minor, Op.33
Slonimsky – Intermezzo in memory of Brahms

Industry Panel discussion
led by Gill Graham (Wise Music)

Martin James Bartlett
recital

Bach/Busoni – Ich Ruf zu Dir, Herr Jesu Christ
Bach/Hess – Jesu, Joy of Mans Desiring
Rachmaninoff – Prelude in G Major, Op.32, no. 5
Rachmaninoff/Wild – Where Beauty Dwells
Rachmaninoff/Wild – Vocalise
Gershwin – The Man I Love
Gershwin/Wild – Embraceable You
Gershwin – I Got Rhythm

Chi-chi Nwanoku OBE
Keynote speech

Rufus Wainwright
Q&A and performance

BOOK HERE

Professor Vanessa Latarche
FRCM, HonARAM, FTCL, LRAM, ARCM
Royal College of Music: Head of Keyboard & Associate Director for Partnerships in China

After studying at the Royal College of Music and completing her training in the USA and Paris, Vanessa was awarded many scholarships and prizes from international competitions.

Vanessa Latarche’s concert career has taken her to Europe, the USA and the Far East, as well as many festivals within the UK, including Cheltenham, Harrogate and Huddersfield. Her interest in Bach led to a performance of the complete 48 Preludes and Fugues at the Lichfield International Festival in 1992, the performances being given over four consecutive evenings. She has performed as a soloist with international orchestras and those in the UK including the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, BBC Concert Orchestra, BBC Welsh Symphony Orchestra, working with many leading conductors. She is a Steinway Artist.

READ MORE

Rufus Wainwright

Praised by the New York Times for his “genuine originality,” Rufus Wainwright has established himself as one of the great male vocalists and songwriters of his generation. The New York-born, Montreal-raised singer songwriter has released seven studio albums, three DVDs, and three live albums, including the fantastic Grammy nominated Rufus Does Judy at Carnegie Hall, which captured his celebrated Judy Garland tribute performance at the London Palladium in 2007, and the album Release The Stars which went Gold in Canada and the U.K.

READ MORE

Chi-chi Nwanoku OBE
Chineke! Founder, Artistic & Executive Director

Chi-chi is the Founder, Artistic and Executive Director of the Chineke! Foundation, which supports, inspires and encourages Black, Asian and ethnically diverse classical musicians working in the UK and Europe. The Chineke! Foundation celebrates diversity in the classical music industry through its two orchestras, the Chineke! Orchestra and Chineke! Junior Orchestra, as well as its educational and Community engagement work. Ultimately, the Chineke! Foundation aims to give Black, Asian and ethnically diverse classical musicians a platform on which to excel, and by such methods increase the representation of Asian, Black and ethnically diverse musicians in British and European orchestras.

READ MORE

Martin James Bartlett

Martin James Bartlett possesses a fearless technique and plays with a wisdom and elegance far beyond his years. He won BBC Young Musician of the Year in 2014 since when he has performed with orchestras including the BBC Symphony Orchestra, BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra, Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and Tokyo Symphony Orchestra. In 2017 Bartlett was one of the thirty competitors in the final rounds of the Van Cliburn Competition, held in Fort Worth, Texas.

READ MORE

Maxim Kinasov

Maxim Kinasov is an award-winning solo and chamber musician who performs a wide range of repertoire from Bach to Shostakovich. Born in Moscow, he began piano lessons at the age of five, making his concerto debut at the age of nine and his recital debut a year later.

Awarded a scholarship, he obtained his Bachelor of Music degree with Distinction from Moscow’s Tchaikovsky Conservatoire. His teachers there included Sergei Dorensky, Nikolai Lugansky, Pavel Nersessian and Andrei Pisarev, who are his greatest musical influences.

In 2018, Maxim won the RNCM’s most prestigious award, the Gold Medal and played in the Gold Medal Winners concert at Wigmore Hall in the Spring of 2019. He most recently won First Prize and Special Jury Mention at the Cantù International Piano Concerto Competition (Italy, 2019), Runner-up Prize at the Bromsgrove International Musicians Competition (2019, United Kingdom), and Second Prize and the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra Prize at the 2019 Hastings International Piano Concerto Competition. In April 2020 Maxim has been named as an Artist of the Month of the Talent Unlimited Music Charity. Also, he was selected as a Kirckman Concert Society Artist for 2019-20 and played his full-length solo debut at Wigmore Hall in October 2019.

READ MORE

Gill Graham

As Creative Director for Wise Music Publishing, Gill works with today’s leading composers across all genres. Among them are Hans Abrahamsen, John Corigliano, Bryce Dessner, Philip Glass, John Paul Jones, Nico Muhly, Rachel Portman, Kaija Saariaho, Esa-Pekka Salonen, Joby Talbot and Rufus Wainwright. Her work as a creative producer, bringing composers together with artists in the neighbouring arts, has seeded collaborations with artists such as Martin Creed, Wayne McGregor, Michael Morpurgo, Patrick Ness, The Brothers Quay, Mark Ravenhill, Tal Rosner and Christopher Wheeldon.

Craig Terry

Graduate of Indiana University, Craig Terry has 35 years association with Steinway & Sons and for the past nine years he has been Managing Director of Steinway & Sons UK.