Benjamin Grosvenor directs Mozart, Milton Court

The brilliant young British pianist Benjamin Grosvenor has won prize after prize in his rapid career, and now, at 23, he has his sights on a new goal - directing from the keyboard in Mozart’s Piano Concerto No 27 in B flat, the composer’s last such work. But the concert in which he makes his debut in this role will be distinguished by two other landmarks: it will also be the occasion of the London premiere of Elena Langer’s new chamber work, The Story of an Impossible Love.

Langer is one of the most exciting composers working in the capital today: Russian-born and London-trained, she is currently enjoying a great success with her opera in a Figaro trilogy staged Welsh National Opera: Figaro Get a Divorce, which takes the characters of Rossini’s Barber of Seville and Mozart’s Le Nozze di Figaro and moves them on to the next stage in their lives. A new CD, Landscape for Three People, featuring Anna Dennis (soprano), William Towers (countertenor) and Nicholas Daniels (oboe), which was very well received, shows a great narrative gift.

The concert also marks 10 years as director of the Britten Sinfonia of Jacqueline Shave, who talks about her special bridging role as director and leader of this “conductorless” orchestra in a free pre-concert talk at 6:30PM.

The concert also includes Strauss’s atmospheric Metamorphosen and the visceral second movement from Bartok’s String Quartet No 2.