Pianist rises to a challenge

WRITING in the programme, Miss Nicolls says her reason for choosing to play mostly contemporary/modern music is "My wish to challenge the audience, not simply to entertain but to stimulate as well.

"There is a freedom of playing pieces written last week (literally!) one must make sense of it without any other input, apart from the markings on the score."

She most assuredly stimulated a pathetically thin Guildhall attendance and, with two of the programme's composers sitting in the audience, created a rare challenge for herself as well.

Joe Duddell was there to hear the world premiere of his Scattered Black And White and enthusiastically led the applause.

So too did Ben Wallfisch after hearing the world premiere of his composition Three Miniatures.

They are both pieces worth hearing again which one will be able to do because the concert was recorded to be broadcast in the future on BBC Radio Three's Hear And Now series.

It was a programme that was also demanding for the audience made the more so by an irritating complete change of the stated running order.

Reg Burnard