On Thursday 11th March at 13.00 I will be giving a recital of music by Bach and Chopin at Imperial College. Director of Music at Imperial College, Oliver Gooch, writes the following: On Thursday at 13:00 we welcome back Colin Stone for a piano recital of J.S. Bach and Chopin. Colin is an internationally acclaimed performer and teacher and has been a regular guest at Imperial for over two decades. His programme begins with Bach’s Partita No 4 in D major, from the Clavier-Übung, written between 1726 and 1729. It is arguably the most cohesive of his six keyboard Partitas, demonstrating Bach's unfailing imagination and skill. Chopin follows with his Three Mazurkas, published in 1845 and his Ballade No 4 in F minor, completed in 1842 in Paris. It is considered one of Chopin's masterpieces as well as one of the masterpieces of 19th-century piano music. According to pianist John Ogdon it is "the most exalted, intense and sublimely powerful of all Chopin's compositions... It is unbelievable that it lasts only twelve minutes, for it contains the experience of a lifetime.” Watch Live on Imperial College's You Tube channel.

2020 was a significant year for Beethoven enthusiasts. Fifteen years ago I embarked on my first Beethoven cycle and much though I wanted to revisit the 32 sonatas I opted instead to curate a series of concerts with the theme “Beethoven in Heaven”. I owe the title to Edith Vogel, who described the late sonatas of Schubert, written after the death of Beethoven, as being like Beethoven in Heaven. There were to have been a number of concerts throughout the year on this theme with varied repertoire including piano duets (with Mayumi Iida) and piano trios (with the London Mozart Trio) as well as solo repertoire. However, the pandemic put paid to this but, at least, On October 9th 2021, I will perform Beethoven's Diabelli Variations and Schubert's last sonata, D.960, in St John's Smith Square in London.

It seems a long time since Krzysztof Smietana and I embarked on the cycle of Beethoven's Violin Sonatas and it is appropriate that it will finally come to a conclusion this year. With luck we should be recording the sonatas and maybe will be making some more videos for YouTube to accompany our gratifyingly successful performance of the Spring Sonata.

In the meantime there are plenty of videos on my YouTube channel to enjoy. My latest YouTube video is an upload of a recording made twenty years ago in Potton Hall with the wonderful producer Trygg Tryggvason and engineer Andrew Hallifax of Schubert's Sonata in A minor D.845. There is also a series of videos for YouTube by friends, colleagues and students entitled Lochdown Bach. There are some wonderful contributions.