Adam Heron is a multi-disciplinary pianist who came to fame as a finalist in the 2018 BBC Young Musician of the Year competition.
Born in Hong Kong in 1999 of Nigerian-Filipino heritage, and adopted by an Irishwoman, Adam has become an ambassador for classical music as a recitalist, concerto soloist, ensemble player, composer and musicologist.
His collaborators include saxophonist Amy Dickson, double-bassist Chi-chi Nwanoku CBE, violinist Daniel Pioro, soprano Francesca Chiejina, and cellist Laura van der Heijden.
Adam studied at the Royal Academy of Music and the University of Cambridge, and is now doing a PhD at the University of Glasgow. Venues he has graced include the Wigmore Hall, St Martin-in-the-Fields and the Southbank Centre. He has taken masterclasses with Anne Queffélec, Imogen Cooper, John Lill, Paul Lewis, Stephen Hough and Yevgeny Subdin. In 2016 he was one of the first soloists to perform with the Chineke! Orchestra.
A linguist, traveller and broadcaster, he was a chorister at Gloucester Cathedral before winning a scholarship to Wells Cathedral School. He has performed for the charity founded by the singer-songwriter Bryan Adams and appeared at an early Chineke! Foundation event with someone called Stormzy, apparently a popular entertainer. Being young, he is also on the socials as @adamheronpiano. On the web: adamheron.com
TODAY’S MUSIC
Philip Glass (b.1937)
Metamorphosis One
Samuel Coleridge-Taylor (1875–1912)
Three Silhouettes, Op. 38
1. Tambourine
2. Lament
3. Valse
Chevalier de Saint-Georges (1745–1799)
Sonata in C Major
Johann Sebastian Bach (1685–1750)
Overture in the French Style, BWV 831
1. Overture
2. Courante
3. Gavotte I & II
4. Passepied I & II
5. Sarabande
6. Bourrée I & II
7. Gigue
About the music
Metamorphosis One was written in 1988 for a staging of Franz Kafka’s 1915 novella about a man who wakes up to find he is a cockroach. Philip Glass’s music, based on repetition and pulse, was called ‘minimalism’, a term probably coined by the British composer Michael Nyman. Philip didn’t mind. Samuel Coleridge-Taylor was the London-born son of a Holborn farrier’s daughter and a ‘Creole’ medical student, who went back to Sierra Leone before the child’s birth. His choral work Hiawatha was a sensation and he was much admired by our local heroes Gustav Holst and Ralph Vaughan Williams. Only recently has his full range emerged. These pieces are from 1904. Chevalier de St-Georges was the son of a slave on Guadaloupe and a French plantation owner, who took him to France for military training. He became a Colonel but also a violin virtuoso and prolific composer. The US president John Adams called him ‘the most accomplished man in Europe’. There is even a Disney biopic. J S Bach you know. This suite was written for a two-manual harpsichord and published in 1735.
About the concert series
Cheltenham Music Festival Society’s free Young Musician Concerts take place on Tuesdays at 13:00 in this Cheltenham Trust building. There is a voluntary collection for the travel expenses of the performers and to pay for the venue.
FORTHCOMING ATTRACTIONS
13 May Alexander Dorovin (piano)
20 May Cheltenham Ladies’ College
3 June Bournside School
10 June Tsukushi Mitsuda (piano)
17 June Cheltenham College
24 June Vitaly Pisarenko (piano)
About the handout
Maximalist production: John Morrish. Email me at mail@johnmorrish.com, phone me (077 88 515387), or knock on my door: 2 Priory Mews, Sidney Street, Cheltenham, GL52 6DJ. I’m always happy to talk about music.
Adam Heron portrait: © Bill Knight.
Minimalist joke, c.1986: ‘Knock Knock.’ ‘Who’s there?’ ‘Philip Glass.’ ‘Philip Glass who?’ ‘Philip Glass Philip Glass Philip Philip Philip Glass Glass Glass Philip Glass.’