A new lunchtime series for the Kettner Concert Society at the National Liberal Club.An opportunity for young musicians from Westminster School with three remarkably gifted young pianists playing two Ballades by Chopin and one by Liszt.
‘Ballades for Olympias’ raised over 500 pounds today for the music education charity in Longsight,Manchester.These funds will go to ‘Learn to Play’which will provide free weekly music lessons to 85 children aged between 6-16.
The Olympias Foundation believe that everyone should be given the opportunity to partecipate in music regardless of income or background.

Three precociously gifted young musicians gave remarkable performances of Ballades by Liszt and Chopin.

Eliza Ruffle gave an at times very passionate performance of Chopin’s Third Ballade.It was also a professionally prepared performance of a prize winning student of the Junior Academy.Already a member of the National Youth Orchestra but still a student and trained by the magnificent piano faculty of Westminster she is obviously going on to even greater things.

Ethan Wu gave an extraordinary account of Liszt’s spectacularly evocative Second Ballade.Claudio Arrau ,who studied under Liszt’s disciple Martin Krause, maintained that the Ballade was based on the Greek myth of Hero and Leander, with the piece’s chromatic ostinati representing the sea: “You really can perceive how the journey turns more and more difficult each time. In the fourth night he drowns. Next, the last pages are a transfiguration”.In Ethan’s hands it sprang to life with subtlety and virtuosity.
Extraordinary mastery of the keyboard sonorities and remarkable virtuosity allied to a poetic understanding of this very evocative tone poem.Ethan has been studying for the past year with Prof Christopher Elton.

Shutian Cheng I have heard before playing Rachmaninov’s notoriously difficult third piano concerto at St John’s Smith Square.Just finishing in the sixth form at Westminster and ready for University he has been studying for the past six years with that magnificent trainer of so many remarkable pianists:Christopher Elton at the Royal Academy.He will now open a new chapter in his musical life with Rustem Hayroudinoff.A real artist who could bring to life the elusive opening of one of the pinnacles of the piano repertoire:Chopin’s Fourth Ballade.He also could turn the technical difficulties of the coda into ravishing music of passionate fervour.

Three pianists that have been endowed by Westminster with the early training that gives them the possibility of choosing music as a professional career.
Life will lead them to whichever road they choose but Music will always be present and will be their guiding light wherever life takes them .
So pleased that the new artistic directors Cristian Sandrin and Hannah Elizabeth Teoh are giving a platform to the stars of tomorrow.I hope that after Westminster their series might continue with the Purcell and Menuhin schools as well as many others on an exciting voyage of discovery reaching for the stars.

Adam Heron at the National Liberal Club. An eclectic musician of refined taste and eloquence

Cristian Sandrin at the National Liberal Club – A voyage of discovery of nobility and timeless beauty