Sunday Piano Series: Julian Clef

Indian virtuoso Julian Clef was already a gifted pianist, taught by his father in Kerala, when a musician from Nottingham on holiday in India, recommended he come to England for formal training. Julian’s first UK concert was in Derby, aged just 14. Now a graduate with a diploma from the Guildhall School of Music, he has won competitions across the UK and was privileged to be mentored by Sir András Schiff. Pianist Benjamin Frith has said that “Julian gives performances of great beauty, with which he brings the music so vividly to life”. His programme mixes the Romantic, Classical and contemporary eras, beginning with Brahms’s passionate and intense Rhapsodies, before Beethoven’s emotionally-charged sonata No. 26, describing Archduke Rudolph fleeing Napoleon in Vienna. To end are Nicolai Kapustin’s dazzling jazz concert etudes from 1984, and despite sounding improvised, they are meticulously composed.

Concerts last an hour and the ticket price includes tea, coffee and cake.

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