‘55’ Katia & Marielle Labèque

 by Frances Wilson  September 23rd, 2026

For more than half a century, pianists Katia and Marielle Labèque have held a distinctive place in the musical landscape. Celebrated for the brilliance and precision of their ensemble playing, they have also pursued a career marked by an unusually wide-ranging curiosity. From Mozart, Schubert, Debussy and Ravel to Stravinsky, Messiaen, Philip Glass and Bryce Dessner – and far beyond the conventional boundaries of classical music into jazz, minimalism and popular culture – the Labèque sisters have consistently resisted being confined by repertoire, genre or expectation.

Katia and Marielle Labèque (Photo by Umberto Nicoletti)

Their latest release, 55 (released in June 2026), celebrates an extraordinary 55 years of recording. It features a collection of 25 newly recorded tracks, including several world premiere recordings, plus 30 drawn from an impressive archive spanning 1970 to 2024. The result is not a conventional career retrospective, but a fascinating survey of the repertoire, composers, and ideas that have shaped the sisters’ artistic lives.

The story begins and ultimately comes full circle with Olivier Messiaen. Katia and Marielle were just 17 and 19 when Messiaen asked them to record his monumental two-piano work Visions de l’Amen, himself overseeing the recording. More than five decades later, the final track of 55 returns to that beginning with the work’s concluding Amen de la Consommation. It is an eloquent way to close the circle, reminding us how deeply contemporary music has been embedded in the Labèques’ artistic identity from the very start.

There are familiar works for piano duo and piano 4-hands – by Debussy and Ravel, Dvořák and Bizet, Brahms and Fauré – but alongside these sit the experimental and minimalist worlds of Luciano Berio, Arvo Pärt, Philip Glass, John Cage, Howard Skempton and Bryce Dessner, before returning, via Stravinsky, to Messiaen.

55 is organised in three sections – Wild is the Wind, Of a Bright Garden and Points of Light – moving freely across musical periods and styles; for example, Nina Simone‘s Wild is the Wind, heard in a transcription for two pianos and played with a relaxed expansiveness, sits alongside Margaret Bonds and Emahoy Tsegué-Maryam Guèbrou.  

It is gratifying to see a particular emphasis on women composers, including works by Hélène de Mongeroult, Grażyna Bacewicz, Dora Pejačević, Margaret Bonds and Lili Boulanger. For Katia and Marielle Labèque, bringing these voices into the collection is not merely an exercise in historical correction but part of the same spirit of curiosity that has always driven their music-making: a desire to seek out connections, contrasts and repertoire worth hearing.

Above all, 55 reveals remarkable artistic continuity. Across recordings separated by decades, one hears the qualities that have long distinguished Katia and Marielle Labèque: rhythmic vitality, clarity, colour, imagination and an almost instinctive understanding of one another at the keyboard. At the heart of this collection is the wonderful sense that these two musicians remain as inquisitive and adventurous as ever – still discovering music, still making connections and still asking where two pianos and four hands might take them next.

55 is available on Deutsche Grammophon.

In Touch With Unsuk Chin

 by Frances Wilson  June 21st, 2024

As the 75th Aldeburgh Festival – founded by Benjamin Britten and Peter Pears – gets underway, we spoke to Korean-born composer Unsuk Chin, one of the festival’s Featured Artists.

Unsuk Chin © Priska Ketterer

Who or what are the most significant influences on your musical life and career as a composer?

The most formative influences are probably those from childhood when the senses react to everything around them in a more ‘holistic’, immediate approach. Then, there was the time of my studies: immersing myself in European avant-garde music in the early 80s was vital, as I had before that known ‘Western’ musical history only until Stravinsky’s Violin Concerto. Conversely, the experience of studying with Ligeti, who denounced the avant-garde, requested utterly original music of excellent craftsmanship from himself and his students, asking me to throw away my prize-winning works, was a pivotal moment. Indeed, moments of crisis and subsequent attempts to find a way out are essential moments and threshold experiences.

The excellent Danish poet Inger Christensen wrote that the major influences on her work were creative stumbling blocks, irritations that, in the long term, made her question and develop her approach. For me, such a moment was when I worked, in the late 80s, and after a writer’s block of almost three years, for a couple of years at a studio for electroacoustic music. Through this, I could re-evaluate the essential elements of my compositional approach and expand the basis of my music. Another significant experience was, in the 90s, longer stays in Bali, where I studied Gamelan music – the acquaintance of a different tradition of great refinement and quality deeply rooted in the society was a discovery.

What have been the greatest challenges of your career so far?

That was to realise my childhood dream of becoming a professional musician and fighting my way out of difficult circumstances – in the 1960s and 1970s, South Korea was a poor post-war country on the periphery, and it was not easy to start as a female Asian composer in Germany.

What are the special challenges and pleasures of working on a commissioned piece?

Without a commission or deadline, I would never compose a work. One needs much pressure from the external world to get through this crazy process. I don’t have any work in my drawer. Writing a new piece is a very demanding process and can take years. I wouldn’t go for it without external pressure and the adrenaline rush. At the same time, I would never accept a commission with conditions that don’t fit into the musical thoughts and goals I am working with during a specific period.

What are the special challenges and pleasures of working with particular musicians, singers, ensembles or orchestras?

I always choose very carefully which commissions I accept. One has to prioritise. It almost needs to be a compulsion: if I don’t have an idea what to write for a certain instrument or concept, I won’t do it. For example, I wrote my First Violin Concerto in 2001 and was convinced I would never write another one. But then, when there was a possibility to write for Leonidas Kavakos, I reconsidered, and the work, 20 years later, is very different from the first one.

Of which works are you most proud?

I move on and try to do something new with every piece. I have removed several earlier works from my work list as I am not content with them. As for the remaining ones, I accept them, but there are also pieces to which I feel more emotional distance than others – which is unsurprising when one revisits works from several decades ago. But I can also name a counterexample – my Piano Concerto, which is from 1995 but which wasn’t much performed before the Deutsche Grammophon recording two decades later. This is a work into which I put all the energy and frenzy of my then 34-year-old self – I wouldn’t compose in this manner anymore, but I feel emotionally close to it.  

How would you characterise your compositional language?

I prefer not to, as it may make it more difficult for the listener to approach the work without prejudices. Besides, when I compose a new work, the most important thing for me is its unique shape. Of course, as a composer, you have a particular craft; you prefer certain materials and draw on compositional techniques acquired through the years. You cannot and perhaps shouldn’t avoid that. Nonetheless, it is important for me to attempt each work to be singular in character. Pablo Picasso once expressed it this way: style holds the painter captive in the same point of view, in a technique, in a formula, but he always wants to make something that is new and unknown to himself.  

How do you work?

With pen and paper. Composing is, above all, waiting — days, sometimes weeks, before the empty staves. And then, suddenly, a door opens in the head. With age and experience, one develops trust that this door opens at some point if one tries hard enough. The music is in my head. I sometimes jot down ideas, plan harmonies, etc., but for me personally, it is an abstract process without piano or other devices. It can take several years for thoughts and concepts to mature. And when the pressure is great enough, it’s like giving birth: the thoughts have to come out, then you write.

What advice would you give to young or aspiring composers?

To think carefully if one really wants to have a life as a professional composer. It is usually a back-breaking and lonely job, and the financial prospects are often non-existent. If one really wants to do it, one should, but one should be aware what price it takes.

What do you feel needs to be done to grow classical music’s audiences?

This is not easy since, nowadays, there is a tendency to think more and more in purely economic and functional categories, on top of which you have to add the quickness of modern mass media. Besides, there exists a mistaken notion that classical music would be something ‘elitist,’ which is why the notion that society should support art forms that only a small minority will engage with has lost traction. All of this does not mean that things were better during other times. However, it is concerning and a scandal that music is often no longer even considered a minor subject in schools due to very obscure claims of competitiveness and economic success – claims often made, for example, by numerous politicians. It is wrong to withhold from children the experience of art, which is one of the things that distinguishes human beings from AI, not to mention that art often provides indispensable solace and a utopia. Anyway, there are also ‘late bloomers’, audiences that can be won over with creative ideas and new approaches even if they won’t have had previous exposure to classical music; after all, the experience of great music can be a deeply emotional one. The methods and approaches used to try to develop classical music’s audiences depend on the place and context. But the main thing, I believe, is trust. Trust in quality, the hard work of serious performers and composers, the slow progress of building audiences and overcoming obstacles, an almost aggressive defence of artists’ quality and hard work, the audience’s right to hear this music, and the need for financial support of the whole musical ecosystem.

What is the one thing in the music industry we’re not talking about but you think we should be?

I doubt that such a thing exists as ‘the music industry’ – fortunately, we live in a diverse world. At the same time, of course, certain tendencies exist, but these are intertwined with societal developments. Our times are obsessed with the speed of information, packaging, and the surface, which can be problematic for developing sustainable quality standards. Also, the future of classical music institutions in many places is endangered. That leads often to market-think and occasionally to a winner-takes-it-all mentality. At the same time, fortunately, there are many niches and different initiatives. It was much more polarised in the 50 years after the Second World War: there was the established conservative music world, and then there were the rebellious circles of both the avant-garde and the early-music revival, who not infrequently fractured into warring factions. But every time has its challenges.

What do you enjoy doing most?

Playing the piano. If I need a break during an intense compositional process, I might play fugues by Bach for hours. This helps me clear my mind and persevere.

Facing the Music: Who are we when we cannot practise our art?

by Frances Wilson  September 11th, 2026

For many artists, being an artist is not merely a profession. It is an essential part of their identity. A musician does not necessarily stop thinking of themselves as a musician when they leave the concert platform; a painter remains a painter even away from the studio; a writer may continue to inhabit an imaginative world even when not actively writing. Artistic identity can become so deeply embedded in our sense of self that it is difficult to separate what we do from who we are.

But what happens when circumstances prevent us from doing it? What does it mean to be an artist when the circumstances that allow us to practise and share our art are suddenly taken away?

This question lies at the heart of my debut novel, Facing the Music, which follows two ambitious, gifted young musicians – pianist Theo Browne and violinist Jonathan Lane-Fox – poised on the cusp of professional success in the summer of 1914.

Facing the Music by F M Wilson

At the beginning of the novel, Theo’s sense of identity is absolute: he is a pianist. Years of study with his beloved teacher, Mr Hines, hours of disciplined practice, and his musical partnership with Jonathan have all been directed towards a professional career. Following a triumphant London debut in August 1914, that future appears assured.   

Autograph of the “Spring” Sonata

The First World War abruptly removes Theo and Jonathan from the world in which their artistic identities have been formed. Concert halls, rehearsals and lessons give way to military service and the brutal reality of the Western Front. Yet they do not cease to be musicians simply because they are no longer performing. Music persists through memory: in remembered works, in habits of discipline and listening acquired over years of study, and in the words of teachers whose influence has become part of their inner lives.

Although Facing the Music is set more than a century ago, my exploration of these ideas was influenced by a much more recent interruption to artistic life: the COVID-19 pandemic.

Covid sign

During the UK lockdowns, I spoke to several professional musicians about their experiences. Initially, some welcomed an unexpected break from performing and travelling, seeing it as an opportunity to practise, explore new repertoire, rest and reset. But as the months passed, the absence of concerts and live audiences became increasingly difficult to bear: spare time became an affliction rather than a source of gratification. Musicians spoke of feeling bereft and dislocated, and some began to wonder whether they would be able – or even want – to return to concert-giving when restrictions were finally lifted.  

Concerts had disappeared, venues were closed, and collaborative music-making in its familiar form had become impossible. For people whose lives are so closely bound up with their art, this was far more than the loss of work. It raised questions about identity and purpose.

Wigmore Hall in preparation for re-opening on 1 August (Photo by Matt Crossick/PA Wire)

Those conversations made me reflect on the distinction between being a musician and working as one. If there is no audience, no concert and no engagement in the diary, are you still a performer? If circumstances prevent you from pursuing the career you had imagined, does that diminish your identity as an artist?

These questions found their way indirectly into Facing the Music, particularly into Theo’s story. The First World War and Covid are, of course, profoundly different historical experiences, and the novel does not seek to draw an equivalence between them. What interested me was something more universal: the experience of sudden interruption, the disappearance of familiar routines and expectations, and the necessity of adapting when circumstances beyond one’s control make the expected future impossible.

For Theo, and to a lesser extent for Jonathan, music endures through memory, friendship, teaching, thought and, eventually, performance. But Theo’s understanding of what it means to be a musician changes. Artistic identity can no longer be measured simply by prestigious engagements, public performance or professional success.  

The question facing him is no longer, “Can I still play?” It has become something more fundamental: “What does being a musician mean to me now?”

Returning to the studio

 by Frances Wilson  July 15th, 2018

The late great Canadian pianist Glenn Gould made two significant and highly-acclaimed recordings of Bach’s Goldberg Variations, the first in 1955 when he was just 22, the second a quarter of a century later in 1981 when he was nearing the end of his life. Both recordings stand as benchmarks and both offer fascinating insights into the music and Gould’s approach to it. These recordings have never been out of print – a mark of their status and the respect they command in the canon of Bach recordings. The 1955 recording was Gould’s debut disc for Columbia Records and was something of a risk for the record company since at the time the Goldbergs were regarded as one of the obscurities of the repertoire, while the performer was unknown. The 1955 recording is often described as a young man’s recording, full of the exuberance of youth in its extreme tempi and avoidance of some of the repeats. In fact, the swiftness of the playing is partly due to the constraints of the vinyl format and the need to bring the recording within a certain time-frame. No matter: Gould’s Goldbergs became an instant hit, launching both pianist and the work, which entered the standard repertoire of pianists and remains widely performed and recorded to this day.

When Gould re-recorded the Goldbergs in 1981, recording technology had advanced considerably (stereo and Dolby surround sound had been invented and digital recording/editing could be used for mainstream recordings). This gave the artist greater flexibility, with the possibility of multiple takes to create a recording with which he was entirely satisfied. Gould had been unhappy with the tempi in the first recording and felt there was no sense of cohesion or narrative flow between the individual variations. The 1981 recording is undoubtedly that of a mature artist: the tempi are thoughtful, almost autumnal, and there is much greater expression throughout the variations. There are elegance and nobility rather than swooning, nervous energy.  

Gould’s two recordings of the Goldberg Variations demonstrate something profound – that two different approaches to the same notes say a great deal about how one ages and how tastes change over time.

The weather changes. The admirable impetuousness of youth usually yields to a more considered view
– John Humphreys, concert pianist

A recording is a snapshot in time, yet preserved forever, unlike a live performance which is a one-off, never to be repeated. Many artists are dissatisfied with their recordings because they know that they never play the same thing in exactly the same way and no sooner has a recording come out, than they wish they had done things differently. As amply demonstrated by Gould’s Goldbergs, the passage of time allows one to reflect on one’s repertoire and how one plays it. One’s perception of the music changes with time and so it makes perfect sense to re-record from a different, more mature perspective.

Daniel Barenboim

Other notable “repeat” recordings include Daniel Barenboim’s Beethoven Piano Sonatas. Barenboim was a young man when he recorded his first cycle (between 1966 and 1969), and like Gould’s 1955 Goldbergs, there’s an excitement and spontaneity in these readings. He re-recorded the sonatas for Deustche Grammophon in 1981-84 and two decades later Decca released the audio soundtracks of DB’s live performances of the sonatas (performed and filmed in Berlin’s Staatsoper unter den Linden and issued by EMI on DVD). Like Gould’s Goldbergs, these make for fascinating listening, offering one the opportunity to chart the performer’s artistic and interpretative development and maturity, resulting in new or renewed approaches to the music.

That artists choose to re-record works is a mark of how one develops as an artist: one does not and should not stand still artistically. Our responses to our music change with time, experience, growing maturity, and when we return to music we should always find something new within it. For some musicians, capturing the artistic changes that happen across their careers is an important goal and re-recording certain works is a way of marking these changes. In other instances, musicians respond to pressures from a record label: when an artist moves to a new label, they may be encouraged to re-record works to match the success of a previous label.

The best re-recordings don’t recreate, they reinvent. And while listening to them, we try to discover what motivations and inspirations stand behind them.

10 Inspirational & Thought-Provoking Quotes From Musicians and Composers

 by Frances Wilson  December 17th, 2023

“Every time you play a great piece of music, there is a new discovery. Every time.”

– Mitsuko Uchida, pianist   

“I am interested in music as ecstasy, as something that transports you away from the every day to another place.”
– Terry Riley, composer

James MacMillan © Hans van der Woerd

“Perhaps many a composer of the past would be astonished at how over-cautious we are when we play their works.”
– Helmut Deutsch, pianist

“Be open to the possibility of your ears and soul being challenged, be curious about how that may be done, be hungry for new sounds, be thirsty for what you don’t know yet”
– James MacMillan, composer and conductor   

“The purpose of art is the gradual, lifelong construction of a state of wonder and serenity.”
– Glenn Gould, pianist  

Leon Fleisher © The New York Times

“Schnabel said Mozart is the most inaccessible of the great masters because, with the fewest number of notes, he accesses the deepest levels of human awareness and experience.”
– Leon Fleisher, pianist

“As you grow up, communicate more with scores than with virtuosi”
– Robert Schumann

Arthur Rubinstein

“At every concert, I leave a lot to the moment. I must have the unexpected, the unforeseen. I want to risk, to dare. I want to be surprised by what comes out. I want to enjoy it more than the audience. That way, the music can bloom anew.”
– Arthur Rubinstein, pianist  

“If you play music with passion and love and honesty, then it will nourish your soul, heal your wounds, and make your life worth living. Music is its own reward.”
– Sting (Gordon Summer, pop musician)

“Keep searching for that sound in your head until it becomes a reality”
– Bill Evans, jazz pianist

Nocturnes and the Fascination of Night Music Susan Tomes

 by Frances Wilson  April 24th, 2026

Browse streaming platforms such as Spotify, Apple Music, and YouTube, as well as broadcasters like the BBC, and you will find curated playlists of music for relaxation, calm, winding down, nighttime, and sleep. That Max Richter’s Sleep – his landmark 2015 concept album and “eight-hour lullaby” designed to be listened to while sleeping – has surpassed 2 billion streams across all platforms is a testament to the popularity of this genre of music.

Susan Tomes

Why has the night inspired composers for so many years? In her new book Nocturnes and the Fascination of Night Music, pianist and writer Susan Tomes looks for answers, exploring one of classical music’s most expressive forms. The nocturne is closely linked to the piano and the quiet, thoughtful moods of the evening. Susan Tomes calls the nocturne “the origin of today’s sleep music….a short, lyrical and usually tranquil piece evoking night.”

When we think of nocturnes, Chopin often comes to mind. He elevated the form, transforming charming salon pieces into concert works, full of expression and pianistic detail. His nocturnes are amongst the most loved pieces for pianists and audiences alike, regularly appearing in concerts and recordings.

Maria Wodzińska: Frédéric Chopin, 1836 (Wasaw: National Museum)

But before Chopin, there was John Field, an Irish composer and a pupil of Muzio Clementi, who is credited with creating the genre.

Anton Wachsmann: John Field, ca 1820 (Gallica: btv1b84179686)

Susan Tomes looks back to the early nineteenth century, when composers began to write music that captured the quiet, emotional atmosphere of night. She points to pieces that seem to anticipate the nocturne, such as the first movement of Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata and the slow movement of Mozart’s Piano Concerto K. 467.

Field is, of course, the key figure in the development of the Nocturne, and Tomes devotes considerable attention to his life and career, as well as to the emergence of the genre in his hands.

From there, she traces its evolution through some of the most celebrated figures in classical music – from contemporaries of Chopin like the Schumanns and the Mendelssohn siblings to Chopin’s ‘successor’, Gabriel Fauré, whose early Nocturnes seem close to Chopin’s while his later ones are bleaker, more challenging but no less passionate. Close attention is also paid to some of Fauré’s contemporaries, Tchaikovsky, Vincent d’Indy, Rachmaninoff, Scriabin and Chaminade, for example, before Tomes reaches Claude Debussy.

Debussy may have written only one Nocturne, but his sensitivity to the atmosphere of the evening and nighttime is clearly demonstrated in pieces such as Les sons et parfums tournent dans l’air du soir (Preludes, Book 1) and La soirée dans Grenade from Estampes.

Atelier Nadar: Claude Debussy, ca 1890–1910

The piano is at the heart of this story. Tomes explains that its wide range and expressive sound make it perfect for nocturnes. The piano’s intimacy, especially in the smaller, quieter instruments that Field and Chopin played, makes nocturnes feel personal and private, as if they are meant for quiet evening listening instead of big performances. This closeness is a big part of why they remain so appealing.

The latter half of the book brings us right up to the present day. Here Tomes explores wider examples of “night music” – Bartok’s haunting, often unsettling evocations, for example, The Night’s Music from the Out of Doors suite. Tomes highlights the composer Lowell Liebermann (b.1961), who follows “the conceptual line laid out by Faure in his later Nocturnes”, and who, like Bartok, presents nighttime as disquieting and austere. Here, Tomes shows how the nocturne developed from gentle lyricism into a far richer and more complex expressive form.

Lowell Liebermann

A recurring theme throughout the book is the relationship between music and human experience. Night, Tomes suggests, is a time when the boundaries between waking and dreaming blur, thoughts become more fluid and emotions more pronounced. Composers have long been drawn to this atmosphere, using music to explore solitude, memory, and imagination.

The book also looks beyond music to examine how the idea of the nocturne appears in other arts. Painting, literature, and modern culture all share a fascination with night as a source of inspiration. By placing music in this broader context, Tomes reveals the nocturne not just as a genre but as part of a larger tradition focused on mood, atmosphere, and the passage of time.

Nocturne by Whistler Nocturne: Blue and Silver – Chelsea (1871), James McNeill Whistler (Tate Gallery, London)

What sets Tomes apart is that she doesn’t see nocturnes as merely soothing or decorative. She presents them as deeply expressive pieces that span a wide range of emotions. Some nocturnes evoke calm, reflection, or a dreamlike feeling, while others suggest restlessness, unease, or even drama. In this way, the nocturne is not just a musical ‘lullaby’ but a genre that captures the uncertainty of night itself.

Susan Tomes writes with clarity and warmth, combining scholarly knowledge with the perspective of a practising musician, offering detailed analyses of works and notes on performance – invaluable insights for pianists and teachers.

As with all her other writing, her approach is accessible, with her reflections grounded in her lived experience as a performer, thereby offering readers a sense not only of how nocturnes are constructed but also of how they feel to play and to hear. Rich in insight, detail, and musical examples, this engrossing, highly readable book is a must for musicians and music lovers.

Nocturnes and the Fascination of Night Music reminds us that night is not merely the absence of day, but a rich and evocative world in its own right, full of nuance, mystery, and creative possibility.

The Performing Teacher

by Frances Wilson  June 20th, 2017

© auralize.com

I meet many piano teachers, at courses, workshops and masterclasses. It is always good to meet other piano teachers, to exchange ideas, and to enjoy a collective grumble about the exigencies of the job. Many of the teachers whom I meet are also performing musicians, professional or otherwise, and many regard performing as a necessary, indeed crucial, part of the job as a teacher.

I also meet many teachers who do not perform, for one reason or another. Some cite lack of time, others anxiety or lack of confidence. I actually met one teacher who claimed she was “too afraid” to perform for her students in case she made a mistake.

As teachers, performing is, in my opinion, a necessary part of the job, and we need to be able to guide and advise our students on how to present themselves in a “performance situation” (exam, festival, competition, audition), and to prepare them physically and emotionally for the experience. A whole new and different range of skills are required as a performer, and it is important to stress to students the difference between practicing and performing. We also need to be able to offer support for issues such as nerves and performance anxiety, and to offer coping strategies to counteract the negative thoughts and feelings that can arise from anxiety. How can you train others to perform if you have never done it yourself?

A successful performance demonstrates that you have practised correctly, deeply and thoughtfully, instead of simply note-bashing. Preparing music for performance teaches us how to complete a real task and to understand what is meant by “music making”. It encourages us to “play through”, glossing over errors rather than being thrown off course by them, and eradicates “stop-start” playing which prevents proper flow. You never really demonstrate your technique properly until you can demonstrate it in a performance. Performing also teaches us how to communicate a sense of the music, to “tell the story”, and to understand what the composer is trying to say. It adds to our credibility and artistic integrity as musicians. And if you haven’t performed a piece, how can you say it is truly “finished”?

I always perform in my student concerts, not to show off, but to demonstrate to my students (and their parents, who pay my bills!) that I can actually do it, that I too am continuing my piano studies by preparing repertoire for performance, and that I have managed my performance anxiety properly. I also feel that by performing with my students, we transform our concerts into a shared music-making experience. I hope that by hearing and watching me playing, my students can better grasp aspects of technique or interpretation we might have discussed in lessons, as well as enjoying the sheer pleasure of listening to piano music, and perhaps draw inspiration from it as well.

Hastings International Piano Competition 2026: A Showcase for Young Talent

 by Frances Wilson  February 23rd, 2026

Forty of the world’s best young pianists will soon converge on the White Rock Theatre for this year’s Hastings International Piano Competition (HIPC), which takes place from 26th February to 7th March.

Hastings International Piano Competition 2026 competitors

HIPC is a biennial classical piano contest held in Hastings, a seaside town in the south of England, with a long history dating back to the early 20th century through the Hastings Musical Festival. Piano luminaries such as Vladimir Horowitz, Artur Rubinstein and Sergei Rachmaninoff performed at the White Rock Theatre in the 1930s. Previous festival adjudicators include Lady Barbirolli and composer Ruth Gipps.

The competition was revived in 2005 as the Hastings International Piano Competition, and over the last twenty years it has grown into an internationally recognised showcase, drawing young concert pianists from around the world who have the opportunity to perform with leading UK orchestras, such as the Royal Philharmonic and Sinfonia Smith Square. The competition is unique in that participants are required to perform movements from a piano concerto (accompanied by another pianist) from the very first round. Those competitors who progress to Round 2 will give a solo performance of 30-35 minutes, which must include a new piece commissioned especially for the competition by pianist and composer Sir Stephen Hough.

Sir Stephen Hough

“It’s a wonderful opportunity for a composer to hear a piece played many times and brought to life under many different hands. I simply want to write something which younger colleagues want to play – not so much a test piece as one which they will enjoy performing beyond the competition.” – Sir Stephen Hough, patron of HIPC

Vanessa Latarche

“There’s not a composer alive who understands the instrument better than Stephen, after all, and it will be fascinating to hear twenty different interpretations of the piece during the competition….” – Vanessa Latarche, Artistic Director

(Test piece for 2024 competition) Chengyao Zhou – ‘Time Unredeemable’ by Lera Auerbach   

Chosen by an experienced pre-selection jury, who watched video auditions of 356 applicants from 46 countries, the 40 selected pianists – aged between 19 and 29 – will travel from 18 nations to compete in one of the world’s leading competitions for rising stars. They will be judged by, amongst others, Jean-Paul Gasparian, Scott Dunn, Boris Slutsky and Professor Vanessa Latarche, Artistic Director (since 2020) and Head of Keyboard at the Royal College of Music, London. Previous prize winners include Curtis Phill Hsu, Roman Kosyakov, and Kenneth Broberg.

2024 Competition FINAL – Curtis Phill Hsu   

Interlude spoke to Vanessa Latarche, Artistic Director of HIPC, about the pleasures and challenges of managing an international piano competition, and what she and her fellow jurors are looking forward to in this year’s competition:

‘The pleasures include hearing fabulous music played by young people who are at the very top of their game, working with distinguished colleagues and the HIPC team to support young musicians. It is a particular pleasure to work with Steinway & Sons, who provide and prepare the beautiful instruments for the competition and look after them carefully throughout. We’re also very lucky to work with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra – it’s such a draw for the young pianists who reach the finals to be able to perform with one of the world’s truly great orchestras.

The challenges are many, including fundraising, audience building and logistics of arrangements in the seaside town of Hastings on the south coast of England.

We’re looking forward to hearing the array of talent we have, to hearing so many piano concertos with both orchestras and to hearing how the competitors handle the Stephen Hough piece and how they plan their programmes. And of course, to finding worthy winners who we will support long after the competition with engagements, mentoring and advice – we look forward to seeing them flourish!’

HIPC offers a prize package worth approximately £35,000, which includes career development opportunities, professional engagements (such as a recital at London’s Wigmore Hall and a concert with the Royal Philharmonic), and mentoring support. The competition is generously supported by Steinway & Sons and numerous sponsors and benefactors, including the Kowitz Family Foundation, which has supported the competition since 2009.

HIPC Music in the Meadow

Beyond the main competition, Hastings International Piano engages in education outreach and community activities through its Learning & Participation programme, bringing classical music to all – from school workshops and community concerts to pop-up pianos across the town and free tickets to the competition for community groups. For aspiring pianists of any age or ability level, Music in the Meadow is an opportunity to showcase the musical talents of the people of Hastings. A grand piano is installed in the Priory Meadow shopping centre, giving everyone the chance to play.

The competition opens on 26 February, and all initial rounds are free for the public to watch.

Find out more at https://hastingsinternationalpiano.org/.