Amiri Harewood (piano), Royal Concert Hall, Nottingham, 25 January 2026 ⭐⭐⭐⭐ Review by William Ruff

Photo credit: Josimar Senior

Amiri Harewood (piano)

Royal Concert Hall

Nottingham | 25 January 2026 

⭐⭐⭐⭐ Review by William Ruff

“Wide-ranging repertoire, stylishly performed.”

Amiri Harewood is a young pianist who has already garnered an impressive array of prizes and awards whilst still a postgraduate student at the Royal College of Music.  On Sunday morning he made his first appearance in Nottingham in an unusually wide-ranging recital spanning four centuries of keyboard music, from Bach in the 18th to George Walker in the 21st.  There were several themes in his choice of music: the spirit of the dance, vivid storytelling and the exploration of national identity.  Just one slight drawback: various changes to the printed programme did make the audience feel a bit disorientated at times.

Russian music featured in the first half of the concert, with Shostakovich represented by two Preludes and Fugues, starting with No 1 in C major, a deceptively simple piece with a calm, solemn, serene opening followed by a fugue that sounds like a musical conversation: lucid, logical and quietly compelling.  It was a good choice of opener, a sort of palate-cleanser before the fireworks began.

Rachmaninov’s G minor Prelude is one of the repertoire’s best-known pieces of keyboard pyrotechnics.  Amiri established a mood of grim determination at the outset, leading to a cascade of notes that unleashed full power and precision.  The B minor Prelude, however, couldn’t have been a greater contrast, one of Rachmaninov’s most tender and elusive works, its texture delicate and transparent, its mood one of quiet introspection and fragile beauty.  Amiri captured its mood with sensitivity and insight.  He is not a pianist to hide his emotions, his gestures and facial expressions always revealing, as if he is creating the music rather than just playing it.

Bach was on the menu too.  His fourth Partita represents the pinnacle of the Baroque keyboard suite, with Amiri turning each dance movement into a character study: the Allemande flowed with intricate grace; the Sarabande became a profound lament, and the final Gigue burst with joyful, rhythmic vitality.

The variety of this recital was further revealed in George Walker’s Piano Sonata No 5 (driven, percussive with complex, overlapping rhythms) and in Nigerian composer Joshua Uziogwe’s ‘Egwu Amala’ from Talking Drums, which brilliantly translates the language of Igbo musical traditions to the piano. Amiri Harewood demonstrated how the piano assumes the role of a whole ensemble of percussion instruments, with cascading patterns, syncopated accents, and repetitive phrases creating a vibrant, pulsating texture.

The concert ended with Eight Poetic Waltzes by Spanish composer Granados.  Here as elsewhere the contrasts were strong in Amari’s performance: from the playful and capricious to the deeply lyrical and melancholic.  It ended a surprising programme that revealed the piano’s infinite capacity for reinvention and expression.

Amiri Harewood, playing in the Sunday Morning Piano Series at Nottingham’s Royal Concert Hall.