Summer Music in City Churches: All The World's A Stage | Nicola Losito (piano)

This perfect lunchtime concert offers immersive aural respite from the visual glare of the modern working day. The exciting young Italian pianist Nicola Losito performs a ravishing programme including two well-known ballet adaptations: Prokofiev’s own dramatic piano version of his ballet suite Romeo and Juliet and piano master Mikhail Pletnev’s version of Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker Suite. With a nod to Dame Myra Hess and friends’ famous capacity lunchtime concerts at the National Gallery held throughout the Second World War, Nicola also plays Hess’s own adaptation of Bach’s profoundly moving Jesu, joy of man’s desiring.

Summer Music in City Churches is a fledgling festival, founded in 2018, presenting beautiful music to inspire, divert and engage, in ancient and architecturally stunning churches in London's Square Mile. Standing cheek by jowl with City offices, these churches are glorious settings in which to listen and reflect: oases of history, beauty and peace amidst the 24-7 hurly-burly of City life.

The theme for the second festival in June 2019 is Words and Music. During a week and a half of events, you will find sumptuous settings of poetry, lyrical music inspired by poetry, plays and literature, words that illuminate music with biographical insight and context, music of significance to literary heroes and heroines, and more: a lyrical celebration.