Programme

J.S. Bach: Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring (Chorale from Cantata no. 147, arr. by Myra Hess)

F. Chopin:  Impromptu op.29 in Ab major

Nocturne op.27 no.2 in Db major

Polonaise op.26 no.1in C# minor

W.A. Mozart: Sonata k.330 in C major

1. Allegro moderato
2. Andante cantabile
3. Allegretto

Anthony Adkins, BEM, won scholarships to both the Royal Academy of Music and the Royal College of Music. Accepting the latter, he studied for five years with Eric Harrison and Bernard Roberts, representing the College in foreign tours and in master classes, including some with Nadia Boulanger. He was a finalist in the Chappell Gold Medal Competition.

Soon after leaving the Royal College of Music, he was awarded a London début recital at the Wigmore Hall. He then won the coveted Chopin Fellowship from the Polish Government enabling him to work with the eminent Professor Jan Hoffmann at the Academy of Music in Kraków. On completion of these intensive studies, Professor Hoffmann’s assessment of Anthony Adkins was profoundly simple – ‘a great artist.’

Since then, Anthony has played for innumerable important occasions and has frequently appeared at the Wigmore Hall and the South Bank, London. He has toured the UK extensively and engagements abroad have included Austria, France, Germany, Holland, Hong Kong, Poland, Spain, Sri Lanka, Switzerland and the USA. He has often played in the presence of the Royal Family and Heads of States, and been invited to sit on the juries of international piano competitions.  A programme about him was recorded for BBC radio; he has broadcast on Radio Poland and appeared on German and Sri Lankan television. He was made a Medallist of the Order of the British Empire (BEM) in His Majesty, King Charles III first Birthday Honours in June 2023.

Anthony Adkins’ outstanding reviews from far and wide confirm and emphasise the extent of his formidable international reputation.

“A virtuoso technique at the service of a perceptive musical mind”  ( The Daily Telegraph/UK)

“Command of tone and colour”   (The Times/UK)

“A brilliant pianist”   (Sudkurier/Germany)

“His romantic warmth and fervour were engagingly irrepressible”  (The Daily Telegraph/UK)

“Anthony Adkins’s recent performance was inspiring and engaging. His stillness at the piano   created an aura of quiet intensity, and his playing was both sensitive and exciting”  (Washington DC, USA)