Perfecting Piano in Perrins 

On Monday RGS Worcester welcomed parents and pupils to the annual Piano Concert, with guest soloist Roman Kosyakov. Roman, originally from Siberia, has studied in the UK since 2017 and is now forging an exciting career as a piano soloist, winning Third Prize and The Bridget Doolan Prize for the best performance of a piece by Mozart at this year’s Dublin International Piano Competition.

Our day with Roman was based in Perrins Hall, making use of the superb acoustics available. The morning began with a piano ‘Masterclass’ session for GCSE and A Level Music students from RGS Worcester and RGS Dodderhill, as well as from local state schools The Chantry, Tudor Grange and Nunnery Wood High School. Each school brought between three and fifteen students, with one student from each school playing to Roman and receiving some useful comments on phrasing, balance between the hands, pedalling and how to make the piano ‘sing’. All of the students watched on and considered how Roman’s analysis and comments could help their own music-making.

In the afternoon, Roman entertained all of Year Seven with a short concert during Tutor time. Roman’s precise and passionate playing impressed Year Seven pupils, who had the chance to ask him some questions at the end. Throughout the rest of the day, Roman spent 20 minutes each with ten RGS pianists, all comfortably working at Grade 7 level and above on their piece for the evening concert. Each pianist benefited from Roman’s musical maturity and piano-playing skill as they worked through some hard passages from their pieces for the evening concert.

The culmination of the day took play at 7.00pm with our Piano Concert. Pianists from Year Nine to the Upper Sixth performed solos ranging from pieces by Mozart and Haydn from the Classical Period, Romantic music by Chopin, Liszt, Tchaikovsky and Brahms and more modern work by John Ireland and Helen Hopekirk. Each pianist held themselves well in this formal concert setting, delighting the audience with a variety of piano colours. The soloists involved were Ben Weller, Isaac Chan, Poppy Wood, Luke Jones, Sasha Penlington, Sihan Fu, Noah Davison, Annetta Makar, Elizabeth Crookall and Tobey Butler. After a short interval, Roman performed a super suite of pieces by Bach, Chopin and Mussorgsky. 

The audience were thrilled by Roman’s piano-playing proficiency which rounded off a super day. We thank Roman for his work with us and congratulate all who took part.

Mr Jonathan Soman

Director of Music