Described by the reviewer as ‘pure pleasure’, a wonderful review of Danny Driver's early January concert at the Wigmore Hall has just been published by Gramophone, in their "Spring 2025: Live concert reviews’’.  As a ‘centrepiece’, ‘ideally placed in this recital’, the concert included the world premiere of Catena IV,  a substantial work for piano by Thomas Simaku.  The reviewer writes: ‘Beginning with two Chopin Nocturnes, he went on to play Ligeti’s provocative Musica ricercata as a series of highly atmospheric impressions, suggesting an exhilarating journey of exploration.

John Donne, Beckett, Berio, Joyce and The Beatles - just a few of the eclectic collection of artists who influenced the composers in the upcoming York Late Music concert on 1st March (19:30) by the Elysian Singers of London, conducted by Sam Laughton. The programme will also include the first performance of David Lancaster's The World’s Last Night. Late Music also celebrate Roger Marsh's (Professor of Music at the University of York from 1989 to 2019) 75th birthday on Saturday, with a lunchtime (13.00 hours) concert by the Trifarious Ensemble. Trifarious will play Roger's Ferry Music and Easy Steps, as well as works by Berio, Takemitsu, Tom Armstrong and David Power.   

We are absolutely thrilled that the young pianist Yash Saran has just won the Ethyl Smyth Award for Performance of a Work by a Female Composer in the 2025 Woking Young Musician of the Year Competition 2025, adjudicated by George Caird. He performed the first movement of house composer Sadie Harrison’s Lunae (1. ...around and a round...) for solo piano.

Yash Saran has been playing the piano since the age of 6, and now studies at the Royal Academy of Music Junior Department with Eleanor Hodgkinson.  He is a thrice winner of Woking Music Festival's Junior Musician of the Year and twice runner up of the Piano Prize at the Academy.