Fund-Raising Piano Recital
Fund-Raising Piano Recital for the Trust
On Sunday 24th March at 2.30pm in The Music Room, Assembly House, Norwich a recital of 24 Piano Preludes from Bach to Gershwin will be performed by Norwich based pianist and lawyer, Jonathan Wortley, Chairman of the Badminton Trust.
The recital lasting just over an hour will include fascinating commentary linking the works historically in a performance.
At least 17 composers have written sets of 24 or 25 preludes, usually in all the different keys. This programme was inspired by a CD issued a couple of years ago by the pianist Dominic John, with 24 preludes in all the keys, each by a different composer (in fact 25 preludes because he started and finished with ones in C major.) “I thought this was a great idea for a recital, and I decided to draw only on music I already had, which in some cases I had never performed or even looked at. I have covered all the keys, but only managed 19 different composers, but there is still a huge variety, and some composers I hope some of you will never have heard of!”
Jonathan Wortley was born in West Runton, and attended Gresham’s School, where he met his wife Sally, a ‘cellist, on a music course held there one vacation. He read Natural Sciences then Law at Trinity Hall, Cambridge, where aged 20 he performed Prokofiev’s 1st Piano Concerto in a May Week concert. He attended the College of Law in London, but spent most of his time playing the piano and accompanying students at The Guildhall, where he had lessons with the late Geraldine Peppin. He subsequently had a number of lessons with Hamish Milne.
Jonathan has practised as a solicitor in Norfolk for almost 40 years, but music continues to be an integral part of his life, both as performer, treasurer of the Norwich-based chamber orchestra the Academy of St Thomas, and as trustee of a number of musical charities. He performs concerti, solo recitals and chamber music, as well as accompanying. He has worked with a number of professional musicians including the violinists Alan Brind, Jane Faulkner, Hannah Perowne and Andrew Storey, violists Philip Dukes and Gillianne Haddow, ‘cellists Richard May and Martin Storey, clarinettists Lynsey Marsh and Stephen Waters, and
singers Mary Nicholls, Evelyn Tubb and Catherine Waters.
This recital is being performed in aid of the Michael Badminton Young Musicians Trust that Jonathan has been Chairman of since it was founded in 1998.
