The piano has been at the heart of Wigmore Hall ever since Ferrucio Busoni and Vladimir de Pachmann performed during its inaugural concerts 125 years ago. This two-week festival celebrates today’s community of concert pianists, ranging from rising stars to seasoned artists, each with something fresh and personal to express.
£5 tickets for selected concerts are available to Under 35s
BRAHMS, MUSORGSKY AND TCHAIKOVSKY
This lunchtime recital includes a selection of exquisite miniatures drawn from Brahms’s late Op. 116 collection and Tchaikovsky’s The Seasons and the bold expressive masterstrokes of Musorgsky’s Pictures from an Exhibition.
TUE 22 SEP
Tamara Stefanovich piano
Hailed by the Guardian as ‘fearless, dazzling, exceptional’, Stefanovich creates a feeling of sacred space and intimacy with a recital that rises from Bach’s Aria variata and embraces Messiaen’s tender meditations on the infant Christ.
BACEWICZ, CHOPIN, EMMA-RUTH RICHARDS, RACHMANINOV AND STRAVINSKY
A programme that reflects the pianists profound interest in the music of Poland and determination to broaden the keyboard repertoire with new work, here in the form of the London première of two études by Emma-Ruth Richards.
Zee Zee’s festival programme combines the energy and drama of Schubert’s C minor Piano Sonata with Liszt’s near-mystical vision of the Villa d’este fountains and fiendishly difficult Tarantella.
BARTÓK, BEETHOVEN, LIGETI AND SCHUBERT
Hamos’s debut album, including Bartók’s Hungarian Peasant Songs together with works by Ligeti and Schubert, prompted Gramophone’s reviewer to praise the ‘sheer finesse, innate musicality and total commitment informing every note she plays.’
SAT 26 SEP
Katya Apekisheva piano
Apekishevar returns to Wigmore Hall with two works from Vienna, separated in time by 80 years, yet both deeply infused with the spirit of Romanticism: Schubert’s Piano Sonata in B flat D960 and Alban Berg’s Piano Sonata Op. 1.
Sat 26 Sep 2026, 7.30pm
Thomas Adès piano
HAYDN
Variations in F minor HXVII/6
JANÁČEK
On an Overgrown Path:– IX. In Tears
THOMAS ADÈS
Blanca Variations
TRAVINSKY
Serenade in A
Interval
THOMAS ADÈS
Forgotten Dances:
– VI. Vesper (for Henry Purcell)
(transcribed by Thomas Adès)
BARTÓK
Piano Sonata BB88
BEETHOVEN
Piano Sonata No. 30 in E Op. 109
Thomas Adès launches a three-concert Residency with a carefully curated programme hallmarked by the noble beauty and inventive richness of its contents. The British composer, pianist and conductor, hailed by Prospect magazine for his ‘uncanny brilliance’, explores the art of variation and musical reflection, the latter infused in his Vesper, dedicated to the memory of Henry Purcell.
MON 28 SEP
Elisabeth Brauss piano
BARTÓK, CHOPIN, MESSIAEN AND MOZART
Brauss opens her festival programme with the charm of Mozart’s Piano Sonata in F. It prepares the way for a selection of pieces from Bartók’s Fourteen Bagatelles BB50 Op. 6 and and the romanticism of Chopin’s F minor Fantasy.
TUE 29 SEP
Nelson Goerner piano
A programme that embraces the improvisatory freedom of JS Bach’s Toccata in C minor BWV911, with its surprising inventive twists and turns, followed by the emotional switchback ride of Robert Schumann’s Fantasie.
Tue 29 Sep 2026, 1.00pm
Jeneba Kanneh-Mason piano
SCARLATTI
Sonata in E minor K98
MOZART
Piano Sonata in C K330
PRICE
Song Without Words in ASong Without Words in G ‘Pleading’
MENDELSSOHN
Song without Words in E Op. 19b No. 1Song without Words in G ‘Maidüfte’ Op. 62 No. 1
CHOPIN
Ballade No. 2 in F Op. 38Ballade No. 1 in G minor Op. 23
A recital from one of Britain’s most thrilling young artists. Gramophone hit the mark in its review of her debut album of works by, among others, Chopin and Florence Price: ‘Jeneba impresses as a pianist of enormous technical resources in service of an uncommonly rich and versatile musical imagination. With so much in full flower at such an early age, her future will surely be dazzling.’
Wed 30 Sep 2026, 7.30pm
Jason Moran piano
Jason Moran returns to Wigmore Hall for a solo performance that reflects his clear, searching musical voice. As Rolling Stone observed, he is ‘shaping up to be the most provocative thinker in current jazz’, a reputation earned through artistry that continually refreshes the way audiences listen.
WED 30 SEP
Saskia Giorgini piano
BONIS, CHOPIN, DEBUSSY AND MORE
Giorgini recalls the beauty and refinement of Belle Époque Paris in a programme that includes exquisite miniatures by Mel Bonis and Lili Boulanger and closes with L’isle joyeuse, Debussy’s seductive evocation of Aegean warmth and colour.
DE LARROCHA, EARL WILD, GIESEKING AND MORE
A compelling programme of compositions by some of the last century’s greatest pianists, the hauntingly beautiful Elegy by Tatiana Nikolayeva and Wanda Landowska’s shimmering Feu follet among them.
HELMUT LACHENMANN, LISZT AND SCHUBERT
Schubert’s 4 Impromptus D899, composed in 1827, stands at the heart of the Turkish pianist’s recital, paired with Helmut Lachenmann’s Variations on a Theme of Schubert (1956) and Liszt’s impassioned ‘Vallée d’Obermann’.
SUN 04 OCT
Robert Levin fortepiano
A performer renowned for painstaking scholarship and voluminous knowledge of Mozart’s art, Robert Levin returns to Wigmore Hall for a lecture-recital that charts the composer’s journey to artistic maturity.
Fri 02 Oct 2026, 7.30pm
Zlata Chochieva piano
CHOPIN
3 nouvelles études12 Etudes Op. 1012 Etudes Op. 25
Zlata Chochieva’s recording of Chopin’s Etudes Opp. 10 & 25, released in 2014, was described by Gramophone’s reviewer as ‘one of the most consistently inspired, masterfully executed, and beautiful-sounding versions I can recall’.
