The 2019 Bury Festival is a ten day long event, celebrating the best in music, film, theatre and exhibitions and I was lucky enough to have been invited to perform a recital at The Apex in Bury St. Edmunds for the festival.

The Apex is a wonderful theatre with excellent acoustics and one of the best green rooms I have ever used….!

It was great fun to play in Bury St. Edmunds and the audience were great! It was so nice to meet Hiroshi and Kahori who travelled all the way from Japan for the recital, thank you for the great gifts!

Huge thanks to Nick for inviting me and also to Andrew Giller of Giller Pianos for providing such a beautiful Steinway for me to perform on.

Warming up at The Apex

Last week I performed at Wigmore Hall in London. Wigmore Hall is probably the best known recital hall in the world and it felt like a real honour to be able to perform there.

Practising before the performance.

The walls in the green room are covered in photos of the most famous musicians who have performed at the hall, its slightly nerve wracking to know that I would be playing on the same stage as so many incredible artists.

Thank you to everyone who came and supported me for the performance, it was a great evening!

A special thank you to Josephine for Grandfather Lorenzo! I will take good care of him!

I am very happy to announce that I have begun working with The Young Classical Artists Trust (YCAT).

The jury consisted of Gaetan Le Divelec (director, Askonas Holt), Angela Dixon (chief executive, Saffron Hall), Kathryn Enticott (director, Enticott Music Management), Dominic Fyfe (senior executive producer, Decca Classics), Stephen McHolm (academy director, Verbier Festival), Alasdair Tait (chief executive & artistic director, YCAT) and Roger Wright CBE (chief executive, Snape Maltings).

With Alasdair Tait, Chief Executive and Artistic Director YCAT.

Being selected by YCAT is a great honour! I am looking forward to working together.

Today I received the news that I have been selected to take part in the XVI International Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow next month. I feel very honoured to have been accepted for the competition as there were over 1200 applications worldwide and only 25 pianists were chosen to take part. (…and only one from UK!)

Really looking forward to the event as it is, in my opinion, the most prestigious of all the music competitions.

Good luck to all of the contestants!

I received confirmation today that I will receive a grant from The Hattori Foundation.

http://www.hattorifoundation.org.uk/award-winners.html

The Hattori Foundation was created in order to assist and encourage exceptionally talented young instrumental soloists or chamber ensembles and they have very kindly awarded me a grant.

Thank you to everyone at The Hattori Foundation for your support.