Robert Bridge – piano

The Programme

‘Piano Month’ at St Bride’s

Robert Bridge – piano

Cantéyodjayâ

Sonata in C minor, D 958
i. Allegro
ii. Adagio
iii. Menuetto: Allegro
iv. Allegro

Welcome to ‘Piano Month’ at St Bride’s – celebrating the acquisition of our new Steinberg Grand Piano.

The Artist

Robert Bridge was a foundation scholar at the Royal College of Music where he won the RCM Chopin prize and was awarded a first-class honours in the London BMus degree. He continued his studies in London and Germany with assistance from the Countess of Munster and Leverhulme Trusts. He gave a highly-acclaimed debut South Bank recital at the Purcell Room for the Park Lane Group where he played Messiaen’s Cantéyodjayâ and was described in The Times as “that most gifted of young British pianists”. Whilst much has changed since then, he is still British. This led to invitations to give concerts at the Wigmore Hall, the BBC Lunchtime Concerts and at various festivals in Italy. A subsequent recital for the Park Lane Group of two-piano music with the pianist Jonathan Higgins received outstanding reviews and led to the first of two solo appearances at the BBC Proms Concerts at the Albert Hall.

Robert Bridge has accompanied masterclasses for Elizabeth Schwarzkopf, Ruggiero Ricci, Steven Isserlis and Gerard Souzay and has made numerous recordings for BBC Radio 3. He has performed concertos with the Milton Keynes Chamber Orchestra, the Hampshire County Youth Orchestra and the Channel Islands Youth Orchestra and has recently given performances of Chopin’s 2nd, Rachmaninoff’s 3rd and Beethoven’s 4th and both Brahms concertos with the North London Symphony Orchestra. Recent solo recitals have included performances of all the Chopin Preludes and the four Ballades, Ravel’s Miroirs and Bach’s Goldberg Variations. He teaches piano to enthusiastic kids and rusty adults, is an Associated Board examiner and organises an annual series of Knitting Concerts in Putney, aka Purls before Wine, where he subjects unwitting audiences to Webern, Tippett, Janacek and Ligeti whilst they read, sew, finish their crosswords and sometimes even listen.