Current Programme
Piano recital by John Paul Ekins Tuesday 6th February 2018
Tuesday 20 March 2018, Churchill Room, Wanstead Library, Spratt Hall Road, Wanstead 8:00 pm
Tickets will be available at the door: £10 (Visitors); £7 (Members)
Complimentary light refreshments will be served during the interval
Pianist John Paul Ekins has performed at many prestigious venues abroad and in the UK (such as the Royal Albert and Wigmore Halls). This evening he will play works by Chopin, Schumann, and Beethoven (the Pathetique sonata) and will end the evening with Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition.
Biography
John Paul Ekins is in great demand as a piano recitalist, concerto soloist and chamber musician and has performed at many prestigious venues in the UK and abroad including the Wigmore Hall, Royal Albert Hall, Queen Elizabeth Hall, Birmingham Symphony Hall and the the Zurich Tonhalle.
He decided to take up a career as a piano soloist at the relatively late age of 16. He discarded a place to read music at Cambridge University and enrolled on a four-year undergraduate course at the Royal College of Music, London, because he felt that the RCM would offer greater practical opportunities for his development as a concert pianist. He graduated from the RCM with First Class Honours in 2009 and in 2011 graduated from the Guidhall School of Music and Drama with a Master’s of Performance (Distinction). He was the recipient of a Music Education Award from the Musicians Benevolent Fund and receives generous support from Making Music, The Concordia Foundation, The Razumovsky Trust and The Keyboard Charitable Trust.
In 2013 he made his Royal Albert Hall debut performing Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue with the Southbank Sinfonia. He has also performed concertos by Mozart, Beethoven, Schumann, Grieg, Rachmaninoff, Shostakovich and Gershwin with orchestras throughout the UK.
International Competition successes include some 19 awards, scholarships and prizes. He was also accepted onto the prestigious Britten-Pears Young Artists Programme and was selected to appear in Making Music’s Concert Promoter’s Network Brochure 2013-14. He was also the only successful pianist in Making Music’s Young Concert Artists Competition 2012 and as such was a Recommended Artist under Making Music’s Philip & Dorothy Green Award scheme.
Educational and outreach work is enormously important to John Paul too; he has given workshops and masterclass-recitals with great success in the UK and was recently appointed as piano teacher at St. Paul’s School, London. John Paul has been particularly honoured to be presented to Her Majesty The Queen and His Royal Highness The Prince Philip at a Reception for Young Performers at Buckingham Palace