NEWSDESK
FANNY FHEODOROFF
On the eve of "A night in Vienna" at the Holywell Music Room it was announced that Fanny had won first prize in the Strings Final of the Royal Over-Seas League Annual Music Competition. She gets a prize of £5,000 and goes through to the Gold Medal Final at Wigmore hall on Friday 15 May. Lucy Waterhouse, no mean violinist herself, said of her performance: "Fanny is quite the best young violinist I have heard in a long time. She is a magnificent artist and the gorgeous sounds she drew out of her voluptuous violin and bow will stay with me. She had so much to say and said it with such style, passion and refined beauty."
KINGS PLACE EVENT 27 April 2026
In April, Kettner Concerts will be promoting three iconic Mozart piano concertos performed by a sparkling piano quintet. Four soloists from the London Mozart Players will form the string quartet with Cristian Sandrin at the piano.
Mozart himself arranged concerto No. 13 in C major K415 as a piano quintet. The recitals at the Holywell Music Room Oxford on 23 April and at Kings Place London on 27 April will première No. 22 in E-flat major K482 and No. 23 in A major K488 as piano quintets in new arrangements by Cristian Sandrin. Cristian is considered to be an outstanding interpreter of Mozart. He can make the music dance with joy or whisper with beguiling tenderness, always with Mozartian poise and clarity. It is a rare chance for us to rediscover the genius of these chamber concertos that weave their magic as they meander along their musical journey.
The title of the recital "Immortal Mozart" is taken from Schubert's famous quote “O Mozart, immortal Mozart, how many, how infinitely many inspiring suggestions of a finer, better life you have left in our souls!”
Promote Our Pianists is happy to support Kettner Concerts to enable these
ground-breaking recitals to take place.
RACHEL BREEN
POP's next event is a piano recital by Rachel Breen at the National Liberal Club on Thursday 26 March. Tickets are already on sale. You can book HERE.
Rachel has called her recital "Aria da Capo". The Italian word Aria translates into English as the word Air and originally referred to any simple folk song or melody, such as J.S. Bach's Air on a G string, or the Londonderry Air. In the context of opera it referred to sung as opposed to spoken recitatif, and today is used to describe a song from an opera. The word Capo means head or beginning. During the Baroque period of the 17th and 18th centuries there was a popular three-part musical structure where a simple opening tune is followed by a second contrasting melody before returning to the first tune which is then repeated with improvised variations and ornamentations. It was also used to describe instrumental music modelled on vocal music. For example, J.S. Bach called his Goldberg Variations "Clavier Ubung bestehend in einer ARIA mit verschiedenen Verænderungen" (Keyboard exercise, consisting of one ARIA with diverse variations.)
In her interview, Rachel tells us about her fascination with J.S. Bach, his awesome output, how he revolutionised keyboard compositions and his continuing influence on composers today.