Page 20 - Coverage Book Festival of New BPA

25 February 2021

Michael White’s classical & jazz news:

Pushkin House Festival; Oxford Lieder

Festival; Festival of New

By Michael White

Alexander Karpeyev. Photo: @garethdanks

WALKING around Bloomsbury on a cold, grey winter’s day, you could almost imagine yourself in
the backstreets of St Petersburg. And there’s one place in particular that encourages the
comparison. It’s called Pushkin House. It functions as an unofficial Russian cultural centre
(nothing to do with the Embassy or poisoned underpants). And next week, starting Mar 2, it hosts
a music festival that runs on until Mar 14.

Needless to say, the whole thing is online; and for a “boutique” event, there’s a lot happening –
organised by the Russian-born but London-based pianist Alexander Karpeyev, who is himself a
specialist in Medtner, the Russian composer who ended up (improbably) in Golders Green.

Alongside music by Prokofiev, Glinka and Rimsky-Korsakov, the festival programme has a
special focus on composer Nikolay Kapustin who died last year at the age of 82. And if you don’t
know Kapustin’s work, it’s an exhilarating synthesis of jazz with classical – largely for keyboard,
and astonishing to hear because it plays out with such brilliant intricacy, energy and joy.