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Biography 

 

Mark Viner is recognised as one of the most exciting British concert pianists of his generation and is becoming increasingly well-known for his bold championing of unfamiliar pianistic terrain. Born in 1989, he began playing at the age of 11 and two years later was awarded a scholarship to enter the Purcell School of Music. There he studied with Tessa Nicholson for the next five years. Another scholarship then took him to the Royal College of Music where he studied with Niel Immelman for six years and graduated with both first class honours in a Bachelor of Music degree and the Sarah Mundlak Memorial Prize for Piano for having gained the highest mark in the year for his final recital and, following a bursary from the Countess of Munster Musical Trust, a distinction in Master of Performance.

After winning 1st prize at the Alkan-Zimmerman International Piano Competition in Athens, Greece in 2012, his official début recital in the Hellenic capital was hailed by the press as the most important musical event of 2012 while engagements at home and abroad have flourished. Having given acclaimed performances at London’s St. James's Church Piccadilly, St. John’s Smith Square and Wigmore Hall, engagements in his hometown of Oxford include recitals at the Holywell Music Room, the Jacqueline du Pré Music Building and the Sheldonian Theatre where he made his début with the Oxford Philomusica Orchestra under the batôn of Marios Papadopoulos. On another occasion he was invited to play for the royal visit of H.R.H. Prince Charles.

 

Invitations to festivals include the ProPiano Hamburg and Raritäten der Klaviermusik, Husum in Germany, Indian Summer in Levoča, Slovakia, and the Cheltenham Music Festival and Oxford Lieder Festival in the United Kingdom, while radio broadcasts include recitals aired on Deutschlandfunk and interviews on BBC Radio Oxford.

 

Aside from a busy schedule of teaching and performances he is also a published writer and his advocacy for the music of Charles-Valentin Alkan has led to his election as Chairman of the Alkan Society in the United Kingdom. As a recording artist, his début recording of music by Sigismond Thalberg on the Piano Classics label has garnered great critical acclaim while his forthcoming release on the same label is of the music of Franz Liszt.

 

'From Viner’s fingers the iridescent showers of notes cascade with scintillating exuberance [...] a blazing young British talent' – Gramophone Magazine

 

'Here Viner manages a near impossible feat, bringing the melody to the fore with incredibly natural phrasing [...] The five stars are for Viner, who wins his own duel with Thalberg' – Pianist Magazine

 

'Viner is superbly adept in this repertoire [...] Very promising' – BBC Music Magazine

 

This concert is supported by the Keyboard Trustwww.keyboardtrust.org