Mozart for lunch? And why not. As St John’s Smith Square announced its Autumn 2014 season yesterday, fans of the Austrian composer had particular reason to lick their lips.
In the venue's ‘Mozart Explored’ series, Howard Shelley will perform Mozart's Piano Concertos with the London Mozart Players (pictured above) over six lunchtime concerts, each of which will include a brief spoken introduction to the music, exploring the main themes.
The lunchtime series is just one of a number of eye-catching performances that feature in the former church's season. Others include three concerts featuring the continuation of Portuguese pianist Artur Pizarro's Rachmaninov’s Complete Piano works series. Pizarro won admirers with his complete Chopin series in 2010.
Elsewhere, Pizarro's fellow pianist Martino Tirimo will be joining the Henschel Quartet for Brahms’s Piano Quintet while, to mark the 20th anniversary of the first concert of the piece at St John’s Smith Square, Stephen Layton conducts Polyphony and the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment in Handel's Messiah.
The season not all about looking back, however. This season will also see premieres by Harrison Birtwistle and Stephen Montague, and also the start of the St John's Smith Square Young Artists’ Programme, which promotes new performers who have passed a competitive selection process.
For full details, go to the St John's Smith Square website.
Camellia Johnson