Aberystwyth Music Club present two concerts this week.

Violinist Mary Hofman and pianist Richard Ormrod resume their series of Beethoven sonatas on Sunday, 24 April at 3pm. The series started in Aberystwyth with a well-received concert at Old College in 2019.

This concert will be the second in Aberystwyth Music Club’s first live chamber music concert season since 2020. Mary and Richard will play Beethoven’s three Opus 30 sonatas and a new work, Until the Thread Breaks, to be introduced by Sarah Lianne Lewis.

Sarah was born in Aberystwyth into a family of amateur musicians. Educated at Plascrug and Penglais schools, she went on to study music and history at Cardiff University, where she gained bachelor’s and master’s degrees. She attended the composition course at Aberystwyth’s summer Musicfest for three years running from 2008. Currently Composer Affiliate with the BBC National Orchestra of Wales, she is the youngest and the first ever woman to hold such a residency with the orchestra.

On Thursday, 28 April at 8pm, pianist Alicja Fiderkiewicz and narrator Denis Lavin offer a musical voyage through the life and works of Fryderyk Chopin

In The Exquisite Heart and Mind, a programme of music and readings, Alicja will perform works from his Nocturnes, Polonaises, Mazurkas and Preludes, as well as the Polonaise Fantasie. These pieces reflect some of the significant stages in his life, from youthful compositions to the works composed in Majorca and Nohant before his early death.

Denis Lavin will give dramatized readings from Chopin’s letters to family and friends and from the observations of those who knew him well.

Alicja was born in Poland and studied in Warsaw, Moscow and Manchester. She continues an international solo career and teaching from her