Part of Chetham’s International Piano Summer School 2026.
Between Wednesday 12 – Saturday 22 August, Chetham’s International Piano Summer School brings world class and legendary musicians to a vibrant, supportive community in central Manchester, now celebrating it’s 25th anniversary year. Alongside lectures, open lessons and opportunities to develop new skills, you can discover a daily programme of recitals from world-class performers.
Seating for these events will be unallocated. If you have any access requirements, please do let us know at boxoffice@stollerhall.com or on 0333 130 0967. You can find out more about access in our building here. Our venue will be open half an hour before each public performance and will close in between performances.
Day Eight
Young Artist’s Recital, 1.45pm-2.30pm
Tickets £5.50. Students/U18 Free
Today we welcome three talented young pianists in an exciting programme.
Nadiia Dotsiak:
Victor KOSENKO Two Poem-Legends, Op. 12
Myroslav SKORYK Burlesque
Frederick Johnston:
PROKOFIEV Romeo and Juliet Op. 75: No. 6, The Montagues and the Capulets
York BOWEN 24 Preludes Op. 102: No. 7 in Eb Major
Takashi YOSHIMATSU Piano Folio… To a Disappeared Pleiad
Chiara Lordi:
LISZT Ballade No. 2
Piano Summer School Lecture – From Stress to Strength: For a Life Well-Lived as Musicians by Mookie Lee-Menuhin, 5.15pm-6pm
Tickets £11.50, Students/U18 £5.50
The classical music field still subscribes to a myth: that talent is mainly innate — a gift granted at birth to a lucky few. Combined with a near-total lack of mental training and a culture of externally-driven validation, it compels many to chase a golden formula for mastery and success — one that too often leaves them depleted and burned out instead.
Drawing on her own performing career and the latest brain research, concert pianist and neuroscientist Mookie Lee-Menuhin challenges that myth — and explains why uncertainty, especially when uncontrollable and socially evaluated, is one of the brain’s biggest stressors. That may explain the staggering mental health crisis among musicians, affecting not only their performance but also their daily life.
Her message: stress itself isn’t the enemy. The same stress activation becomes either threat or fuel depending on how it’s interpreted — so how you relate to it is a choice, and awareness enables you to bring that choice into action.
She shares five practical, science-backed tools you can use immediately — in the practice room, backstage, and on stage — opening the door to liberation.
As she puts it, this is “the art of meeting life with awareness, intention, connection, and meaning” — not a set of stress-management tips, but a way of reclaiming agency over the pressure built into this profession.
A Recital by Joanna MacGregor, 7pm
Tickets £22.50, Students/U18 £5.50
Joanna MacGregor CBE is one of the world’s most innovative musicians, appearing as a concert pianist, curator and conductor. Head of Piano at the Royal Academy of Music and Professor of University of London, Joanna MacGregor was the Artistic Director of Dartington International Summer School & Festival 2014-2019, Artistic Director of the Bath International Music Festival 2006-2012, and curated the multi-arts Deloitte Ignite Festival at the Royal Opera House, as well as Aventures+, an orchestral series for Luxembourg Philharmonie. She runs an annual Summer Piano Festival at the Royal Academy, involving over a hundred young musicians playing core repertoire as well as collaborating with composers, actors, visual artists, writers and filmmakers. Joanna has just been appointed Music Director and Principal Conductor of the Brighton Philharmonic, as it approaches its centenary.
As a solo artist Joanna has performed in over eighty countries and appeared with many eminent conductors – Pierre Boulez, Sir Colin Davis, Valery Gergiev, Sir Simon Rattle and Michael Tilson Thomas amongst them – and orchestras, including the London Symphony and Sydney Symphony orchestras, Chicago, Melbourne and Oslo Philharmonic orchestras, Berlin Symphony Orchestra and Salzburg Camerata. She has premiered many landmark compositions, ranging from Sir Harrison Birtwistle and Django Bates to John Adams and James MacMillan. She performs regularly at major venues throughout the world, including Wigmore Hall, Southbank Centre and Barbican Centre in London, Sydney Opera House, Leipzig Gewandhaus, the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam and the Mozarteum in Salzburg.
Joanna is a regular broadcaster, making numerous appearances at the BBC Proms. Known for her interpretations of Bach, she was invited by Sir John Eliot Gardner to perform the Goldberg Variations at the Royal Albert Hall in 2013, broadcast live. She made her conducting debut in 2002 and has directed concerts with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Liverpool Philharmonic, Manchester Camerata and the Hallé. She has also enjoyed a close artistic partnership with the Britten Sinfonia for more than fifteen years; amongst the many artists with whom she has collaborated are the soprano Carolyn Sampson, cellist Adrian Brendel, folk artist Kathryn Tickell, Brian Eno, and the writer Marina Warner. She was seen on BBC’s recent Civilisations series with the Wayne McGregor Dance Company.
As a recording artist Joanna is a veteran of over forty solo recordings, ranging from Bach and Scarlatti to jazz and John Cage. Her own record label SoundCircus was founded in 1998 and has released many highly successful recordings, including the complete Chopin Mazurkas, the Mercury Prize-nominated Play, Bach’s Goldberg Variations (recorded at the Mozarteum in Salzburg) and Live in Buenos Aires with the Britten Sinfonia. Jazz recordings include Sidewalk Dances — music by the New York street musician Moondog — and Deep River, inspired by the Deep South, with saxophonist Andy Sheppard.
Joanna MacGregor was awarded a CBE for services to music in the Queen’s Birthday Honours in 2019. She was Visiting Musician at Oriel College Oxford, and in 2016 was awarded an Honorary Doctorate from the University of Cambridge. She has received Honorary Doctorates from Bath University, Bath Spa University and the Open University, as well as Fellowships from the Royal Academy of Music, Trinity College of Music and Murray Edwards College, Cambridge. She makes regular appearances on television, and was the subject of a South Bank Show; her ongoing series of music books, PianoWorld, has been hailed as ‘a new series for the Millennium’. She is currently Chair of the Paul Hamlyn Music Awards, and was a 2019 Booker Prize Judge.
Leonid DESYATNIKOV Songs of Bukovina
Leonid DESYATNIKOV 24 Preludes for Piano (2017)
A Recital with Piers Lane, 8.30pm
Tickets £22.50, Students/U18 £5.50
“No praise could be high enough for Piers Lane whose playing throughout is of a superb musical intelligence, sensitivity, and scintillating brilliance.” Bryce Morrison, Gramophone
We are thrilled that Piers is available to join us again at Chetham’s for a solo recital and teaching on the faculty.
Five times soloist at the BBC Proms, Piers Lane’s wide-ranging concerto repertoire exceeds one hundred works and has led to engagements with many of the world’s great orchestras, working recently with conductors like Sir Andrew Davis, Vassily Sinaisky, Gerard Schwartz and Brett Dean. Festival appearances have included Aldeburgh, Bard, Bath Mostly Mozart, Bergen, Cheltenham, Como Autumn Music, Prague Spring, Rockport, La Roque d’Anthéron, Ruhr Klavierfestival, Schloss vor Husum, Seattle and the Chopin festivals in Warsaw, Duszniki-Zdrój, Mallorca and Paris.
Peter TRANCHELL Seven Pieces
1. Peacock 2. Rainy Season Bird 3. Goat 4. Crane 5. Cuckoo 6. Frog 7. Elephant
CHOPIN Prelude in C# minor Op.45
CHOPIN 24 Preludes Op.28
