Your events at Classical Events
Details
St Giles' Cathedral
High Street
Edinburgh
EH1 1RE
Scotland
Tickets
Prices: £15, £19, £25, £35
Booking line: 0333 6663366
Book Tickets
Programme
Robert Schumann – Carnaval, Op.9
Ludwig van Beethoven – Piano Sonata no.8 in C minor 'Pathétique', Op.13
Performers
Simon Callaghan – piano
Other concerts in this Series (+)
Programme Note
St Giles Cathedral plays host to the inaugural Edinburgh Royal Mile International Piano Series. This exciting and prestigious new concert series will feature all 32 of Beethoven's Piano Sonatas throughout the 2024 season. Featuring exceptional performances from leading UK and international pianists, these concerts will be an unrivalled opportunity to enjoy some of the world's greatest piano repertoire, as curated by our guest performers. Set in the stunning candlelit venue of St Giles Cathedral, with it's newly installed Steinway Grand Piano, this will be a musical experience to remember! St Giles is situated in the heart of the Royal Mile with many bars and restaurants nearby to complete your evening.
Simon Callaghan performs internationally as a soloist and chamber musician, in parallel with a highly successful career as a recording artist. A favourite performer at the internationally- renowned Husum Festival of Piano Rarities in Germany, Callaghan’s recent sell-out concert was praised by VAN Magazine as a “cleverly curated recital full of discoveries” and by the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung as “technically brilliant”. Callaghan has developed a wide following and appears on a regular basis in the UK’s major concert halls, and on tours to Asia, North America and Europe. Recital partners have included Sheku Kanneh-Mason, Nicholas Daniel, Adrian Brendel, Feng Ning, Samuel West, Prunella Scales and Timothy West. BBC Young Musician of the Year Finalist Coco Tomita and Callaghan have a successful duo partnership which saw their first record released in 2022 on Orchid Classics. He is also a founding member of the London Piano Quartet, joining colleagues from the renowned Piatti Quartet to showcase the repertoire for piano quartet with a particular focus on revivifying works that have fallen into obscurity.
Simon Callaghan’s distinguished and eclectic discography includes recordings for Hyperion, Nimbus and Lyrita. He has a strong profile on BBC Radio3 and on a variety of streaming platforms, his most recent single on Apple Music with Coco Tomita surpassing 1 million streams in the first month of its release. He is a strong social media enthusiast, using it as a form of promotion for classical music in general but seeing it as a particular tool in his advocacy of the rare and unexplored.
Callaghan’s broad repertoire encompasses the standard works of the 19th and 20th centuries and increasingly concentrates on much that is rare and unexplored, examples including Bernhard Scholz, Josef Rheinberger and Carl Reinecke. A cornerstone of his work is his commitment to British music, and he has recently begun a series on Lyrita, recording world premieres of British concertos with Martyn Brabbins and the BBC National Orchestra of Wales. Callaghan has also made first recordings of the complete piano music by Rebecca Clarke, George Dyson and William Busch. He has recorded four albums for Hyperion’s celebrated The Romantic Piano Concerto series. His first disc for Hyperion, with the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, formed part of his PhD at the Royal Northern College of Music and was praised by BBC Radio 3’s Andrew McGregor: “I have nothing but praise for the performances... impressive pianism”.
