CONCERT

Anthony Adkins Piano Concert

• Date: Thursday, November 28, 2024
• Time: 7p.m. for 7:30p.m. Concert

WA Mozart, Fryderyk Chopin, Juliusz Zarębski

Anthony Adkins
Anthony Adkins was born in Northampton, England. He was educated in London and won scholarships to both the Royal Academy of Music and the Royal College of Music. Accepting the latter, he studied for five years with Eric Harrison and Bernard Roberts, representing the College in foreign tours and in master classes, including some with Nadia Boulanger. He was a finalist in the Chappell Gold Medal Competition.

Soon after leaving the Royal College of Music, Anthony Adkins was awarded a London début recital at the Wigmore Hall. He then won the coveted Chopin Fellowship from the Polish Government enabling him to work with the eminent Professor Jan Hoffmann at the Academy of Music in Kraków. On completion of these intensive studies, Professor Hoffmann’s assessment of Anthony Adkins was profoundly simple - ‘a great artist.’

Since then, Anthony Adkins has played for innumerable important occasions and has frequently appeared at the Wigmore Hall and the South Bank, London. He has toured the UK extensively and engagements abroad have included Austria, France, Germany, Holland, Hong Kong, Poland, Spain (including 3 times for the Festival Musica Mallorca in Palma and Valldemossa), Switzerland and the USA. In recent years he performed for the first time in Colombo, Sri Lanka, where he played Grieg’s Piano Concerto “A stellar performance” - The Daily Mirror, Colombo. This was followed by a private concert for the Prime Minister of Sri Lanka and other foreign dignitaries.

Anthony Adkins has enjoyed a lifetime relationship with Poland and the Polish community in London since being awarded the Chopin Fellowship by the Polish Government in 1974. In 1979 he married Kazimiera Brynkus from Kraków and they have one daughter, an anaesthetist. The list of his ‘polish’ engagements is comprehensive:

1981 - concert at the Polish Embassy, London. This was given as part of an exhibition by the artist, Mrs Jean Reddaway, wife of the British Ambassador to Poland (1974-1978)

1990 - concert in POSK, London for the Instytut Józefa Piłsudskiego on the occasion of the namesday of General Józefa Piłsudskiego. Members of the audience included the President of Poland-in-exile, Ryszard Kaczorowski, Jadwiga and Wanda Piłsudska. The concert concluded with a performance of the soldiers’ song, ‘Brygada.’

1995 - concert at the Polish Embassy, London. This was given to a worldwide audience of politicians and ambassadors.

1995 - concert at Łazienki Palace, Warsaw. This was given in the Teatr Stanisławowski.

1995 - concert at Pałac Szustra, Warsaw.
2010 - concert at the Pomeranian Dukes’ Castle, Szczecin.
2011 - concert at the Pomeranian Dukes’ Castle, Szczecin.
2012 - concert at Łazienki Palace, Warsaw.
2013 - concerts at Łazienki Palace, Warsaw. (one indoors & one outdoors).
2014 - concert at Dom Polonii,Kraków.
2015 - concert at Dom Polonii,Kraków.
2016 - concert at Szafarnia as part of ‘Holidays with Chopin ‘series.
2017 - concert at Szafarnia as part of ‘Holidays with Chopin ‘series.
2018 - concert at Łazienki Palace, Warsaw.
2018 - concert at Szafarnia as part of ‘Holidays with Chopin ‘series.
2019 - concert at Łazienki Palace, Warsaw.
2019 - member of jury at International Chopin Piano Competition for Children and Youth, Szafarnia.
2020 - concert video recorded in London and live-streamed from Szafarnia.

Anthony Adkins has often been a member of jury for piano competitions including in Poland, Hong Kong, Germany and the UK. A programme about him was recorded for BBC radio; he has broadcast on Radio Poland, as well as appearing on German and Sri Lankan television.

Anthony Adkins’ outstanding reviews from far and wide confirm and emphasise the extent of his formidable international reputation:

“The music and atmosphere you have created still lingers about - it was one of the best recitals ever held at the Embassy” Polish Embassy

“A virtuoso technique at the service of a perceptive musical mind” The Daily Telegraph/UK

“Command of tone and colour” The Times/UK

“A brilliant pianist” Sudkurier/Germany

“His romantic warmth and fervour were engagingly irrepressible” The Daily Telegraph/UK

“His playing was amazing” Sud Ouest / France

“The audience was spellbound” The Times/Richmond

“Spontaneity and flexibility of a high order” Stuttgarter Nachrichten/ Germany

“His virtuosity was entirely that of the born musician and poet - never that of the showman”

Fairfield Hall

“Adkins is the devil of a pianist” Fairfield Hall

“He not only conquered its technical difficulties but also realised its potential” The Times/UK

“A pianist of outstanding musicianship, integrity and craftsmanship” The Times/Richmond

“Anthony Adkins’s recent performance was inspiring and engaging. His stillness at the piano created an aura of quiet intensity, and his playing was both sensitive and exciting.”

Washington DC, USA

“A stellar performance” (Grieg piano concerto) The Daily Mirror, Colombo, Sri Lanka