susan tomes, piano

“She distills the essence of a piece of music into its purest form in the most profound and moving way.” 
The Scotsman

Sunday 23 January 2022, 3pm at Holy Trinity Church, Haddington

CPE Bach : Freie Fantasie, Wq67 
Joseph Haydn : Sonata in E flat Hob.XVI:52 (I.Allegro, II. Adagio, III: Presto)
Leos Janacek : On an Overgrown Path, Book One (selections)
Maurice Rave l: Noctuelles, Oiseaux Tristes, La Vallée des Cloches (from Miroirs) 
 Robert Schumann : Arabeske, opus 18 
 Amy Beach : Dreaming 
Claude Debussy : Les fées sont d'exquises danseuses; La Terrasse des audiences du clair de lune; General Lavine - eccentric; Ondine; Feux d'Artifice (from Preludes, Book Two)

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Susan Tomes has won numerous international awards as a pianist, both on the concert platform and in the recording studio, including several Gramophone Awards and the 2013 Cobbett Medal for distinguished service to chamber music. She grew up in Edinburgh and was the first woman to take a degree in music at King’s College, Cambridge. Her career encompasses solo, duo and chamber playing; she has made over fifty CDs and has been at the heart of the internationally admired ensembles Domus, the Gaudier Ensemble and the Florestan Trio with whom she won a Royal Philharmonic Society Award. Since the 1980s, when as a founder member of Domus she helped to put up the portable geodesic dome which enabled the group to perform in unusual settings and attract new audiences, she has explored ways of reaching out to listeners. As the author of six acclaimed books and a long-running blog, she has carved out a special niche as an interpreter both of music and of the classical performer’s life. Her most recent book, The Piano – a History in 100 Pieces , was published in 2021 by Yale University Press, its launch marked with a concert at Wigmore Hall in London. It was a ‘Book of the Year’ in The Spectator, the Financial Times and Presto Music as well as being a ‘Notable Book of 2021’ for a leading bookstore in Chicago and a ‘Scottish Book of 2021’ in The Scotsman.