Past Performances
William Bracken played the second International Piano Recital sponsored by the Keyboard Trust and the Robert Turnbull Piano Foundation in St Alkmunds Church as part of their free Tuesday lunchtime concert series. He performed on Tuesday April 1st 2025.
William Bracken is in high demand as a recitalist, concerto soloist, chamber musician and teacher. The Wirral-born pianist has won numerous awards including 1st prize at the 2022 Liszt Society International Piano Competition, 1st prize, press prize and audience prize at the 2023 Euregio Piano Award international piano competition and 3rd prize at the 2024 UniSA international piano competition in South Africa. He is currently continuing studies at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London where he also holds a position as teaching assistant in the Centre for Creative Performance and Classical Improvisation.
The famous Georgian pianist played her first recital in Shropshire on Sunday 19th January 2025 at 2.30pm in St Chads Church, Shrewsbury as part of the Shropshire Music Trust 2024-2025 Season. Mariam has already played in over 30 countries around the world since being the first woman to win the 10th Franz Liszt Piano Competition in Utrecht 2014.
James Fraser Andrews reviews pianist Mariam Batsashvili...
"Pianist Mariam Batsashvili is one of the world’s living treasures and I now realise why everyone wants a piece. Originally slated to visit Shrewsbury two years ago, one baby and 43 international flights later, this diminutive dynamo of the keyboard finally landed at St Chad’s with an unforgettable programme of Haydn, Beethoven, Brahms, Schubert and Liszt that combined piercing, crystalline beauty with red-blooded gypsy fire and charm.
The Italian pianist Axel Trolese visited Shrewsbury on Tuesday 26th November 2024 to perform for the first time in Shropshire, arriving hot-foot from playing his debut recital in London at the new Bechstein Hall. This recital in the Tuesday lunchtime St Alkmund series was the first recital sponsored by The Keyboard Trust and the Robert Turnbull Piano Foundation, who plan to support two Shrewsbury International Piano Recitals per year, in recognition of the welcome given to young international pianists by the town.
James Fraser-Andrews reviews a high-powered piano recital by Kazakhstani pianist Alim Beisembayev for The Shropshire Music Trust at the Maidment Auditorium, Shrewsbury School.
"There is no pianist under the age of 30 I would rather hear,” claimed the Daily Telegraph’s critic about the prodigiously talented Alim Beisembayev. And on the evidence of the declaratively beautiful yet understatedly masterful recital on the Maidment Auditorium’s Steinway, who could disagree? Here, in the latest edition of Shrewsbury’s excellent International Recital Series, was playing that entered the bloodstream with hypnotic power, blessed by absence of ego alongside a generous and close embrace of the music itself.