Pianist Ben Smith presents a fascinating programme of rarely-heard works of Italian post-war Modernism, alongside visionary keyboard music from the Italian Renaissance.
The programme includes landmark works by Luciano Berio and Aldo Clementi (celebrating both composer’s centenaries), Cathy Berberian, Niccolò Castiglioni, Giacinto Scelsi, and Salvatore Sciarrino, together with intabulations from the Codex Faenza, Vittoria Aleotti, and Lucia Quinciani.
About Ben Smith
Ben Smith is a pianist and composer specialising in contemporary and experimental music. Hailed as one of “the finest new-music pianists in London” (Tempo) and a player of “extraordinary precision and insight” (The Guardian), he is in demand both as a soloist and chamber performer (An Assembly, Apartment House, Athelas Sinfonietta, Apartment House, Explore Ensemble, London Sinfonietta, Riot Ensemble, Uproar Ensemble).
Known for daring and virtuosic performances which traverse the extremes of the contemporary repertoire, he has given dozens of world premieres across the UK and Europe (Aldeburgh Festival, BBC Total Immersion, Cafe OTO, Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival, inn:pust festval, London Contemporary Music Festival, Musicon, Ny Musik i Birkerød, Spitalfields Music, Transit: Festival voor nieuwe muziek, and at London venues Ambika P3, Barbican Hall, Hackney Round Chapel, Kings Place, Milton Court Concert Hall, St John’s Smith Square, Queen Elizabeth Hall, and Wigmore Hall).
In recent years he has conducted premiere performances of Sarah Angliss’s Giant (Royal Opera House; Aldeburgh Festival), Alastair White’s RUNE, (Tête-à-Tête Opera Festival) and regularly works as deputy MD on Operation Mincemeat (Fortune Theatre). Recording projects include works by Nomi Epstein and Paul Newland (another timbre), Brian Ferneyhough and Alastair White (métier), and the complete piano works of Evan Johnson (all that dust). Ben was a Junior Fellow at Guildhall School of Music & Drama from 2020-2022, where he previously studied with Laurence Crane, Rolf Hind, and James Weeks.