There is a particular kind of excitement that runs through the piano world when a festival devoted entirely to our instrument lays out its plans. As a pianist, I read these programmes the way some people read a tasting menu, half-anticipating the surprises, half-imagining how I would shape each piece myself. So the news from London this week made me sit up.
The London Piano Festival has announced its 2026 programme, and it runs 29 October to 1 November at Kings Place in London. The line-up was revealed on 28 May by co-Artistic Directors Katya Apekisheva and Charles Owen, the two pianists who founded the festival back in 2016.
What is on offer this year
This is the festival's 11th edition, and the spread of repertoire is generous. Four days of performances, conversations and masterclasses bring together established names alongside newer voices, with a line-up that includes Peter Donohoe, Gulsin Onay, Keelan Carew, Junyan Chen, Tom Poster, Martin James Bartlett, Bill Laurance and Kathryn Stott.
An opening rooted in mentorship
The festival opens with something I find genuinely moving as a concept. The first evening pairs a conversation between BBC Radio 3's Donald Macleod and composer Sir George Benjamin, exploring Benjamin's formative relationship with his teacher Olivier Messiaen. Owen and Apekisheva then perform Benjamin's Two or Four and Divisions for piano four hands, alongside Messiaen's Visions de l'Amen for two pianos. A teacher and his student, side by side on one programme: that is the kind of musical lineage that tells you why an instrument keeps renewing itself.
A master, a gala and a new voice
The following night, Peter Donohoe makes his festival debut with a recital of Schubert, Chopin's Preludes Op. 28 and Rachmaninov's Variations on a Theme of Chopin. As ever at this festival, the music does not stop when the playing does: a talk hosted by pianist Kathryn Stott follows, digging into Donohoe's programme and interpretation.
The centrepiece is the much-loved gala. This year it takes the form of a house concert dedicated entirely to Mozart, with Owen and Apekisheva joined by Junyan Chen, Martin James Bartlett and Tom Poster in repertoire written for four hands and two pianos. There is a special pleasure in hearing accomplished soloists fold their playing into one another, listening as much as leading. Four hands at a single keyboard is its own discipline, and Mozart is unforgiving company for it.
The morning after, Junyan Chen, who is building an international career after winning second prize at the 2024 Leeds International Piano Competition, presents a solo recital of Rachmaninov's Etudes-Tableaux, Chick Corea's Children's Songs and Brahms's Piano Sonata No. 2. That mix of Romantic weight and something lighter and more playful is exactly the sort of programming I admire.
Why a festival like this matters
What I love about the model here is its breadth. The weekend stretches from George Benjamin and Messiaen through an intimate Mozart gala and a family Halloween Piano Party to a closing solo set from jazz pianist and composer Bill Laurance. Classical, contemporary and jazz under one roof, with talks and a masterclass woven through, is a reminder that the piano has never belonged to a single tradition.
There is also a quietly important detail for the future of concert life. Under-30s tickets are available for all concerts at a reduced price of ten pounds. Anything that brings younger ears into a hall, especially for music written centuries ago, deserves applause.
This festival has long understood that pianists are also curious listeners, and that audiences enjoy seeing how the sausage is made, so to speak. That belief in conversation and shared discovery is something I carry into my own concerts and chamber music, where the space between players and audience feels less like a wall and more like a table everyone is gathered around.
If London is too far this October, I would love to welcome you to one of my own recitals closer to home. You can explore upcoming concerts or enquire about booking me for a recital or chamber programme at yinghopiano.com. And if you can make it to Kings Place, do go. A roomful of pianos and curious minds is one of the happiest places I know.
