Mozart to Mary Poppins: Nine days of masterclasses and performances, the Oxford Piano Festival

Andrey Gugnin

Nine days of masterclasses and performances by renowned pianists, the Oxford Piano Festival returns from 26 July to 3 August 2025. The festival aims to inspire, support and encourage music-making at the piano of the highest quality. 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.

There are masterclasses at the Jacqueline du Pré Music Building in St Hilda’s College, Oxford, with pianists including Kathryn Stott, Stephen Hough, Nikolai Lugansky, Stephen Kovacevich and Ashley Wass. The festival concert programme begins with Isata Kanneh-Mason joining the Oxford Philharmonic Orchestra and festival founder, Marios Papadopoulos for Prokofiev’s Piano Concerto No. 3 at the Sheldonian Theatre. Other concerts include Vikingur Olafsson in Bach, Beethoven, and Schubert, Nicolai Lugansky in Merton College Chapel in an extraordinary programme of Beethoven, Schumann, Wagner and Liszt, and Stephen Hough in Christ Church Cathedral playing Chaminade, Liszt, Schumann and music from Mary Poppins! Andrey Gugnin’s all-Russian programme includes Michael Pletnev’s dazzling arrangements from Tchaikovsky’s ballets and Stravinsky’s own bravura take on Petrushka, and the festival concludes with Akiko Ebi making her festival debut playing Faure, Ravel and Chopin.

Further details from the festival website.