In 2001, distinguished pianists, piano teachers and dynamic husband and wife piano team Murray McLachlan and Kathryn Page started a piano summer school. They wanted their school to provide an inspiring, warm, friendly environment where anyone obsessed with the piano could simply show up, learn, and hang out. Fast-forward 25 years, and the Chetham’s International Piano Summer School has grown from its humble beginnings into the biggest piano festival of its kind. And despite its massive size, it’s still famously called ‘the friendliest piano summer school in the world.’

Chetham’s Summer School Celebrates Silver

The summer school is held at Chetham’s School of Music in Manchester, UK, where you get an intoxicating juxtaposition of the old and the new. One minute you’re walking past 600-year-old medieval sandstone buildings (which hold the oldest public library in the English-speaking world, pictured in the top image of this post), and the next you’re practising on a Steinway Model D in a state-of-the-art facility, or watching a concert in the splendid Stoller Hall.

At this summer school, you’ll find young prodigies, intensely serious music students, and adult amateurs who just play for fun, all learning side-by-side. Everyone gets access to an incredible faculty of over 60 world-class teachers. A school is defined by the people it attracts: this one hosts more than 500 global participants each year.

Held over two weeks every August, the campus transforms into a buzzing ecosystem of sound, boasting a fleet of grand pianos and over 100 practice rooms. The learning goes far beyond traditional classical repertoire, dipping into jazz, composition, harpsichord, organ, and improvisation. When the daytime practising comes to an end, the music doesn’t stop. The festival features a nightly recital series where renowned pianists take to the stage. Crucially, these evening concerts aren’t kept behind closed doors; they are completely open to the public, turning the school into a vibrant cultural hub.

The Summer School runs alongside the Manchester International Concerto Competition, giving elite young talent the chance to perform with a full orchestra. Between the private tutorials, open masterclasses, and lectures, the experience is famously ‘full-on’, yet it feels more like an annual family reunion than a music course, with attendees returning year after year.

The formula works so well that the school was recently honoured with a special Legacy Award at the Royal Albert Hall. To celebrate their silver jubilee, Murray McLachlan, who is Head of Keyboard at Chethams’ School of Music and a professor of piano at the Royal Northern College of Music, even wrapped up 25 years of memories, amusing anecdotes, and musical triumphs into a celebratory book called ‘School’s in for Summer!’

I thoroughly enjoyed my time spent at the Chetham’s Summer School back in 2021, where I had the honour of hosting the Piano Teacher’s Course, and where I met new friends, piano colleagues and many keen piano students.

The ’25 For 25′ Publication

To celebrate the school’s twenty-fifth anniversary, Murray and Kathryn harboured another great idea: to create a new publication featuring twenty-five specially commissioned piano miniatures from twenty-five living composers, who all have a connection with the Summer School. I was delighted to be amongst the selected composers for this project and set about writing my piece last November.

In this beautifully produced volume, you’ll find intermediate to advanced level pieces (probably from around Grade 7 level onwards) and, perhaps, the most interesting observation is the huge variety of music provided by this diverse smorgasbord of composers. Jazz numbers sit alongside bagatelles, lyrical meditations, as well as more dissonant experimental pieces, and there is also a smattering of minimalist style pieces too.

Torment (An ode to pianists…)

When I started writing this work, it felt as though it should be in a major key, with ‘bell-like’ sounds chiming as a celebration of the school’s 25-year anniversary. But composing never works this way and my subconscious mind had other ideas. As I sat at my piano, I quickly found myself in A minor with a very ‘dark’ opening and closing chord progression which seemed to cry-out for a frenzied middle section. My piece – ‘Torment (An ode to pianists …)’ – perhaps exemplifies the almost universal frustration that we all tend to feel from time to time when practising the piano: but on another level it also signifies the expansive possibilities of the instrument’s 88 keys: the piece circumnavigates almost the entire keyboard. ‘Torment’ is roughly Grade 8 to ARSM diploma level, and it had its first public ‘outing’ or premiere at the school’s opening concert: all twenty-five pieces were played over two concerts: one held at the beginning of Week 1, and the second, held at the beginning of Week 2.

Pianist and Chetham’s Summer School faculty member Henry Cash played my piece at the concert: you can hear his superb performance by clicking on the link below. Henry attended Chetham’s School of Music, studying with Peter Lawson. He then studied at the Royal Academy of Music and later at the Royal Northern College of Music. His performances have been broadcast on Radio 3 and Classic FM, and he has made several concerto appearances with premier UK orchestras, including a performance of Grieg’s Piano Concerto in A minor with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra in 2021.

Twenty-Five Composers

Here is a list of the twenty-five compositions as they appear in the new book alongside the names of their composers:

Where To Buy The Score

Proceeds from the sales of this book, which is published by Forsyth’s, go to the Help Musicians UK charity, and you can purchase your copy by clicking on the button below:

www.pianosummerschool.com

Top image: By Photograph by Mike Peel (www.mikepeel.net)., CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=44783131