Fascinating to discover yet another very fine young artist via Dr Mather and his team in Perivale. Here is a young lady who quite simply loves the piano and who with humility, musical integrity and refreshing innocence played a varied programme of Haydn, Chopin and Stravinsky with a quite remarkable musical and technical perfection. She reminds me very much of one of Gordon Green’s star pupils Anne Shasby, a musicians’ musician, similar in many ways to the artistry of Andras Schiff where music seems to pour so naturally out of their sensitive fingers. It is playing ,above all, of a musician delving deeply into the scores to find the intentions of the composer with the ink still wet on the page. This is Art that conceals Art with a subtle mastery where showmanship or mere note spinning have no place.

The Haydn E flat Sonata was played with great weight with her fingers delving deep into the keys with brilliance and delicacy. There was a clarity and beauty to all she did with scales that just flew from her well oiled fingers with a shape and colour that brought them vividly to life. A beauty to the ‘Adagio’ of disarming simplicity allowing the music to speak eloquently for itself, bringing an extraordinary sense of character to the final Presto. This was a very particular sound world where everything she played made musical sense and was imbued with a beauty of sound and a very definite personality of great conviction and quiet authority.

The six Preludes from Chopin’s op 28 and the Third Ballade op 47 showed the beauty and a disarming simplicity of her playing, allowing the music to flow naturally and without any unnecessary excesses.The prelude op 28 n. 13 flowed faster that I am used to hearing which gave her greater freedom to shape the melodic line with style and good taste. Golden sounds and a beautiful timeless rubato gave an architectural shape to this most beautiful of preludes. N. 14 usually rattled off at tempestuous speed was here played with a clarity, beautifully phrased and shaped with great musicality.There was a glowing beauty to the ‘Raindrop’ Prelude where even the central episode was played with great sensitivity and eloquence.The 16th was played with dynamic drive but phrased so musically that one forgot about the transcendental difficulty of notes that stormed up and down the keyboard. There was radiance and style to the 17th that she shaped as a real tone poem of wondrous beauty.The 18th usually played as a dramatic cadenza was played like the 14th, with measure, where every note was shaped with eloquence and unusual beauty.

The third Ballade is the most pastoral of all four ballades and it suited her playing with its perfect legato allowing the music to unfold so naturally. The final climax was played with restrained passion and fearless brilliance as the final flourish was thrown off with remarkable mastery. I was reminded of the fourteen year Andras Schiff playing it at André Tchaikowsky’s Masterclass in Dartington and being so astonished by such a perfect legato and the lack of hard edges or ungrateful sounds. A beauty that is formed by fingers that have been trained to caress not hit the keys with a weight that can suck the lifeblood out of each note.

Having listened to such musicianly playing I was curious to hear her Stravinsky Petrushka. Usually a showpiece for pianists who battle with the piano to show off their stamina ,technical mastery and transcendental command. Ekaterina showed us a Petrushka that is above all a ballet and whilst her technical mastery was in no doubt it was the musical values she gave to the streams of notes that allowed us to appreciate Stravinsky’s extraordinary musical invention and imagination. An architectural shape of relative values that each note had a very definite place in an overall plan. There was excitement and dynamic drive but Ekaterina sees more of Eusebius than Florestan in her music making. I remember Joan Havill telling one of her students that he would have to put on a few more muscles before attempting Brahms Second Piano Concerto and maybe this side of Ekaterina’s playing is lacking too. Her sense of style and love of music though, makes her, like Schiff an ideal interpreter of the classical repertoire. Piano bashing virtuosi abound but real musicians like Ekaterina are rare indeed.

Her encore of Chopin’s op 10 n. 4 study showed a transcendental mastery but where Rubinstein would stand up in the seat in the final page to inject excitement and not a little showmanship, Ekaterina chose to play it with clarity and restrained brilliance which in its way was just as breathtaking !

Katya Grabova is a young pianist based in London, currently studying under Professor Mei-Ting Sun at the Royal Academy of Music, where she is pursuing her master’s degree. In recognition of her achievements, Katya has been awarded the Michael Gilsenan Named Scholarship. She was born in Moscow, Russia, and began her musical education at the age of six. Katya graduated from the Gnessin School of Music, where she studied with Professor Tatiana Zelikman and the renowned pianist Boris Berezovsky.  

As an active pianist and chamber musician, she frequently collaborates in many music festivals, including the Rheingau Music Festival in Germany, the Gijon International Piano Festival in Spain, the Tel-Hai Piano Masterclasses in Israel, “Bezszady bez granic” in Poland, and the Bowdoin Music Festival in the United States. She has also performed at various festivals and concert series at the Royal Academy of Music, such as the Summer Piano Festival. Katya is a winner of numerous competitions, including “Mlody Virtuos” in Poland, “Sforzando” and the Rubinstein International Music Competition in Germany, and the “Steps to Mastery,” Neuhaus Music Festival, and Nutcracker TV Competition for Young Musicians in Russia. In 2019-2020, she was awarded the First Prize Grant from the Mayor of Moscow. 

Throughout her participation in different festivals and masterclasses, Katya has worked with esteemed musicians such as Dmitri Bashkirov, Robert McDonald, Andrzej Jasinski, Katarzyna Popowa-Zydron, Christopher Elton, Vanessa Latarche, Mikhail Voskressensky, Vladimir Tropp, Vladimir Ovchinnikov, Victor Derevianko, Soyeon Kate Lee, and Ran Dank. Her recent recital appearances include performances at the Purcell Room at Southbank Centre, St James’s Church Piccadilly, and Southwark Cathedral in London; the Shanghai Concert Hall and Wuxi Theatre in China; the Great Hall of the Moscow Conservatory and Tchaikovsky Concert Hall in Russia; the Lielais Dzintars Concert Hall in Latvia; Mozarthaus Vienna in Austria; and various venues across the United Kingdom, USA, Israel, Spain, Germany, and Poland. 

Most recently, in March 2024, Katya was awarded First Prize at the Coulsdon and Purley Festival Concerto Competition and was invited to perform Liszt’s Piano Concerto No. 1 with the Worthing Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Dominic Grier, during the 2024-2025 concert season. Katya is incredibly grateful to be a part of Talent Unlimited.