Joanna Kacperek To Perform Schubert's Wanderer Fantasy

The next in the Iris Axon Concert series

Pianist Joanna Kacperek. Picture: Facebook

March 19, 2024

Pianist Joanna Kacperek will be returning to Acton to play in the next Iris Axon concert.

She will perform Schubert's great Wanderer Fantasy a piece of which Jane Schopf, Founder and Organiser of the series says “it not only pushes the performer to their limit but also the composer in its construction with all movements based on the transformation of a single theme.”

Ms Kacperek’s recital will also include Chopin's Nocturne in C minor Op. 48 No. 1, his Variations Brillantes Op. 12 and the nineteenth/twentieth-century female composer Cécile Chaminade's Thème varié.

The concert takes place at 4pm on Sunday 7 April at Acton Hill Church.

Joanna Kacperek has performed in major concert halls in her native Poland as well as in the United Kingdom, Ireland, France, Italy, Spain, Germany, Norway, the Ukraine, Canada and Japan. Concerto appearances include performances with such orchestras as the Symphony Orchestra of the National Philharmonic in Warsaw and the Lviv Virtuosos Chamber Orchestra..

She is currently an ‘Oxford Song Young Artist’ with her Lied-duo partner Clara Barbier Serrano with whom she performed earlier in the Iris Axon series. Their duo has also recently won the Lied Innovation prize of the Rhonefestival fűr Liedkunst in Switzerland.

Ms Kacperek’s was a finalist at the Royal Over-Seas League Competition in London (2022). Other awards and scholarships include the Titanic Memoriam Pianist Prize at the Lies Askonas Vocal Competition (2021), a special prize at the International Grieg Piano Competition in Bergen (2016), the first prize at the Second International Beethoven Chamber Music Competition, Poland (2017), The Zetland Foundation scholarship in London (2021), the C.Bechstein Foundation Scholarship (Royal College of Music – 2021) the Erasmus scholarship (Berlin University of Arts’ with Prof. Markus Groh) the ‘F.Chopin’ Szafarnia, the ‘B.Smetana’ in Pilsen and the ‘M.Magin’ Paris.

In 2021,she graduated from the Royal College of Music in London, where she studied with Prof. Norma Fisher. She also graduated from the Chopin University of Music in Warsaw in 2017, where she studied with Prof. Ewa Pobłocka

Programmes are available at the door. The event is cash only, £6 general entry, £5 for concessions and £2 for children.

Iris Axon Concert Series Schedule 2024

May 5th Stavroula Thoma – piano
June 2nd Lance Mok – piano
July 7th Susie Gibbons – soprano

Now in its seventeenth year, the Iris Axon Concert Series is an annual season of short (60-70 minute) monthly recitals on Sunday afternoons at the Acton Hill Church. The series was started by Music Director Jane Schopf in 2004 to provide a venue for young musicians starting on their professional careers, many of whom have subsequently enjoyed international success in competitions and on the concert platform. The series has continued to grow and now attracts established international artists as well.

Originally called the Acton Classical Music Concert Series, it was re-named in 2009 in memory of one of its most loyal supporters, Iris Axon, who made possible the purchase of a concert grand, handmade by Clive Pinkham.

The church is deemed ideal for concerts as it has the largest unsupported wooden barrel-vault ceiling in London which brings out the middle harmonics, creating a luxuriously warm sound.