Oxford Piano Festival returns in July

The Oxford Piano Festival is set to make its return this summer with a week of performances from returning performers including Sir Stephen Hough CBE and Víkingur Ólafsson as well as debuts from Akiko Ebi, Andrey Gugnin, Isata Kanneh-Mason and Sophie Pacini.

Founded in 1999 by pianist and Oxford Philharmonic Orchestra music director Marios Papadopoulos the festival aims to showcase ‘music-making and teaching of the highest quality at the piano’. Alongside performances, the festival will feature a series of key masterclasses for advanced piano students of Diploma level and above, hosted by Papadopoulos as well as performers including Rustem Hayroudinoff, Stanislav Ioudenitch, Stephen Kovacevich, Kathryn Stott, Arie Vardi and Ashley Wass.   

Papadopoulos said: ’The Festival’s objective is simple: to inspire, support and encourage music-making at the piano of the very highest order.  Welcoming world-renowned soloists and teachers each year, the Festival provides gifted young players with a rare opportunity to work alongside and learn from some of the world’s finest pianists and teachers, to perform and to learn new repertoire, as part of a dedicated community of artists which encourages exchange over competition’.

Running from 26 July to 3 August, at historic Oxford venues such as Sir Christopher Wren's Sheldonian Theatre, the Holywell Music Room and Christ Church Cathedral, the 2025 festival programme features leading pianists performing repertoire ranging from Beethoven and Chopin to Prokofiev and Stravinsky via Liszt and Schubert. The concert series is accompanied by a talk by arts and music consultant Lydia Connolly aimed at aspiring young musicians.