2000 Ealing concerts - 2004 to 2023
A personal statement
Hugh Mather.

My piano recital at St Mary's Perivale on July 23rd 2023 marks a personal milestone, namely the organization of 2000 Ealing concerts since 2004, at St Mary's Perivale and St Barnabas Ealing. I think it is appropriate to give a few more details about this. As a brief overview, I was born in 1945 and studied medicine at Cambridge University and Westminster Medical School, and was Consultant Physician at Ealing Hospital from 1982 to 2006. I am also a pianist and organist, obtaining the FRCO diploma with the Limpus prize while at school, and subsequently the ARCM (piano performers) diploma, and I continued piano studies with James Gibb for many years.

I gave several piano recitals at St Mary's Perivale from 1985 onwards, and thus became involved with this wonderful church - a tiny 12th-century building which became redundant in 1972 and is now a highly-regarded classical music centre with a magical ambience and excellent acoustics. In 2003 I facilitated the purchase of a new Yamaha grand piano, and commenced concerts there in 2004, becoming Chairman of the Friends of St Mary's Perivale in 2005. Since then, with an excellent and motivated team we have held 1343 concerts, detailed in our archive section. We held about 50 concerts per year on Sunday afternoons and Wednesday evenings until 2016, when we introduced Tuesday afternoon piano recitals, at the suggestion of Roger Nellist, with the annual total rising to about 120.

I am also organist at St Barnabas Church, Ealing, and in 2007 I bought a Bösendorfer concert grand for the church. That fine instrument was the basis for the 657 concerts held there between 2007 and 2020, raising over £250,000 for church funds, with over 530 Friday Lunchtime Concerts, 13 major weekend piano festivals and 6 series of Summer Proms. These are detailed here.

Thus the combined total of concerts at St Mary's Perivale (1343) and St Barnabas (657) reaches 2000 on July 23rd 2023, and has included performances by over 550 pianists, 250 violinists and 150 cellists etc. A list of all the musicians playing at Perivale is available here. All concerts at St Mary's Perivale since 2007 have been recorded with equipment installed by Simon Shute. We started to livestream our concerts in December 2018, and since then have broadcast over 400 on YouTube. We were thus able to broadcast ‘live' concerts throughout the pandemic, with 154 streamed from an empty church, supporting musicians with paid performances, and we received the ‘Lockdown Star' award from the Critics' Circle in recognition. Our broadcasts have been viewed almost 400,000 times since 2018, and now attract over 100,000 views annually in nearly 70 countries. We have raised almost £100,000 for our musicians during and since the pandemic. Further details about our livestreaming activities are available here.

None of this would be possible without our team of volunteers, led by Roger Nellist and Simon Shute, with George Auckland, Andrew Whadcoat, Gill Rowley, Rob Jenkins, Truus Bos, Peter Sandison, Sherry White, Felicity Mather, Andrew Goodhart, Richard Norris and David Brown, among many others. We are firm believers in the future of live broadcasts of classical music, and are now one of the foremost UK broadcasters of piano recitals and chamber music.

Events

Home | Events Archive | Musicians | History | Pictures | ideo | Friends | Contact Us
Search