Katya Apekisheva and Charles Owen today announced a special event to support their London Piano Festival, which they present every October at Kings Place. In its place, Apekisheva and Owen reveal a one-off Gala evening at Kings Place on Saturday 10th October which will be open to a limited audience in addition to online audiences via Kings Place’s digital platform, KPlayer. This special Gala event aims to help raise funds for the 2021 Festival which will feature international artists and a new commission by Sally Beamish.
The evening features two concerts, the first of which features the Festival’s co-Artistic Directors Katya Apekisheva and Charles Owen who will perform solo repertoire in the first half followed by duo repertoire in the second. Audience members at Kings Place will join a reception before jazz pianist Bill Laurance takes to the stage. Tickets for the Gala evening at Kings Place will be £75 and audiences at home will be able to buy tickets for the two concerts separately for a reduced price of £9.50 per concert or £14.50 for the two. Owen Mortimer, Editor of International Piano which is the official media partner of the London Piano Festival, will introduce the event.
“We are devastated to have to cancel the London Piano Festival this year, especially in our fifth anniversary year. However, the health and safety of our performers in addition to our audiences and the Kings Place staff is at the forefront of our minds. Although we have had to cancel our five-day Festival, we are delighted to be able to put on this special evening featuring two concerts which we hope will be enjoyable for audiences both in the hall of Kings Place in addition to those watching live from their homes. We are thrilled that the incredible jazz pianist Bill Laurance is able to join us, especially because jazz has become a core part of the London Piano Festival.”
- Katya Apekisheva and Charles Owen, London Piano Festival Founders and co-Artistic Directors
“The pandemic has had a devastating effect on musicians and venues everywhere, but I’m delighted that we can collaborate with Charles and Katya on this very special evening to support the London Piano Festival, a bright jewel in our artistic calendar.”
Helen Wallace, Artistic & Executive Director of Kings Place
The London Piano Festival was founded in 2016 by Katya Apekisheva and Charles Owen, taking place each October at Kings Place. Each year the programming includes classical and jazz recitals in addition to a family performance and the much-anticipated ‘Two Piano Gala’ which features multiple pianists performing two piano repertoire in various pairings. Artists have included Federico Colli, Nelson Goerner,Christian Ihle Hadland, Ilya Itin, Pavel Kolesnikov, Stephen Kovacevich, Noriko Ogawa, Kathryn Stott, Melvyn Tan and Susan Tomes. Over the past five years the Festival has commissioned and premiered two piano works by leading composers including Jonathan Dove, Elena Langer and Nico Muhly. The 2020 Festival was due to feature the London premiere of a new work by Sally Beamish which has been co-commissioned by the LPF. This premiere will now be performed at the 2021 Festival.
The 2020 London Piano Festival Composition Competition running in partnership with Festival media partner International Piano has also been postponed until 2021. All applications received to date will be kept on file for consideration next year.