Announcing details of the Oxford Piano Festival 2025

Amid the dreaming spires of Oxford, the Oxford Piano Festival returns at the end of July, its 26th year, with another feast of performances by some of the world’s greatest pianists, punctuated by masterclasses featuring future stars of the instrument.

 

 

Kevin Chen in recital: 

 

 

 

Unmissable piano concerts

 

As artistic director of the Festival, Marios Papadopoulos has prepared a musical menu of familiar and novel ingredients. To kickstart the festival, Isata Kanneh-Mason joins Papadopoulos and his Oxford Philharmonic Orchestra with Prokofiev’s popular Piano Concerto No 3. Other great names scheduled to play in the Festival’s evening concerts in venues around the city include: Sophie Paccini (with heaps of Liszt and more, 27 July); Víkingur Ólafsson (in award-winning Bach, coupled with Beethoven and Schubert, 28 July); Nikolai Lugansky (Wagner arrangements dominating the programme, 9 July), Stephen Hough (a varied programme, as is the trademark of this pianist, with everything from Chaminade to Sherman/Hough, 30 July), Andrey Gugnin (in an all-Russian programme, 31 July) and Akiko Ebi (whose debut appearance at the Festival includes a French inspired programme comprising the complete Chopin Préludes, Faure’s Theme and Variations Op 23 and Ravel’s Le Tombeau de Couperin).

 

 

Misha Kaploukhii in performance: 

 

 

 

Piano masterclasses from the best teachers

 

Away from the concert platform, some of these same performers return to inspire today’s rising young stars drawn from all over the world in a series of daytime masterclasses given in the presence of audiences keen to share the experience. They’re joined by other great names from the worlds of teaching and performing including Ashley Wass, Kathryn Stott, Rustem Hayroudinoff, Stephen Kovacevich, Arie Vardie, Stanislav Ioudenitch and Papadopoulos himself.

This affords the opportunity to a select group of emerging young professionals to learn at the hands of the great pianists and professors of our time, and to do so under the pressure of public scrutiny, preparing them for a career in the spotlight but also making for an absorbing listening experience.

 

Masterclass by Emanuel Krasovsky:

 

 

 

Piano stars of tomorrow

 

Included in the line-up of interesting events, and a first for the Oxford Piano Festival, is a workshop with Lydia Connolly for the participants, where she will discuss vital questions that young musicians may face on entering a career in classical music.

And finally, be sure not to miss a showcase of outstanding talent when the Festival’s participants take to the stage on 1 August, having received fresh guidance from the world’s most esteemed pianists echoing in their ears.

 

Festival participants: 

 

 

 

Unique concert venues

 

The Festival is held in some of the city’s most atmospheric venues, including the Holywell Music Room, dating from 1748, Merton College’s 13th-century Chapel, Christ Church Cathedral, the Jacqueline du Pré Music Building (where all masterclasses take place), St John the Evangelist Church and the 17th-century Sheldonian Theatre, designed by Sir Christopher Wren.

 

 

Recommended by Pianist magazine 

 

Pianist’s editor Erica Worth attended the 20th-anniversary Festival in 2018 to interview the late Dame Fanny Waterman on stage, and she experienced the unique Oxford vibe for herself: ‘The atmosphere in the hall was so warm and members of the audience were posing questions to Dame Fanny one after another. They wouldn’t let her go! It was a hot summer’s day and it was lovely to sit on the grounds and meet piano lovers who had come from near and far to attend the Festival. Marios Papadopoulos and the whole Oxford Piano Festival team were so welcoming, too. I look forward to returning very soon.’

 

 

Main image: Marios Papadopoulos with student