The Second Chetham's International Summer School and Festival for Pianists took place in Manchester last August. Jeremy Siepmann was there, and survived to tell the tale.
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For pianists and pianophiles, the world grows richer every year. Annabelle Lawson reports on a new forum which looks set to enjoy many happy returns, the inaugural Chetham’s International Summer School and Festival for Pianists, mounted last August in Manchester.   More ...

Ronald Stevenson, born 1928, is still best known today for his monumental ‘Passacaglia on DSCH’ ,(1960-62), an extraordinary triptych which at approximately eighty minutes duration has legitimate rights to be called the longest single movement solo piano work in the literature. It also ranks as one of the great masterpieces of the instrument, recalling the universality and spirituality of both the Diabelli and Goldberg variations, as well as the artistic legacy of Ferruccio Busoni, the idealism of Casals, the world music of Grainger and the aristocracy of Paderewski. Admirers of this colossal pianistic edifice have included William Walton, Wilfred Mellers, John Ogdon and Kaikhosru Sorabji.
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I have been told that what I teach amounts to a philosophy of pianism. I feel flattered without quite knowing what this means. Since the information is apparently traceable to my students, I suppose I must plead guilty or innocent or both. I certainly love the piano. I fell helplessly and permanently in love with it when as a child I first struck a single note (I think it was the C below Middle-C). With that one sound, which seemed to my childish ears to go on forever, I entered another world.  More ...