Music
Lunchtime Recital: Adam Heron (Piano) and Antal Zalai (Violin)
Standard: £8
Antal Zalai and Adam Heron are both unique and brilliant young musicians in their own right; together, they display a rare intuition and sensitivity.
Heron is a multiple-prize winning pianist who has built a reputation for wonderful musicality coupled with a flair for communication. Zalai has been described by legendary Russian violinist Igor Oistrakh as, ‘An exceptional violinist who has perfect technique, a beautiful large tone, and real musical finesse and maturity.’
Adam Heron
A multidisciplinary classical pianist of Nigerian-Filipino ancestry, Adam Heron is the
winner of the 2020 Harriet Cohen Bach Prize. Born in Hong Kong, then adopted by his Irish mother, Adam rose to prominence following his 2018 television debut as a BBC Young Musician piano finalist. Through his unique artistry, coupled with an innate flair for communication, he strives to become a leading ambassador for classical music.
Adam commands a demanding schedule of international recital engagements, having
already performed at distinguished venues including Wigmore Hall, St Martin-in-the-Fields, and Southbank Centre. A keen linguist and traveller, his artistic endeavours have led to appearances in far-flung concert halls including the International Center for Arts in Cairo as well as the National Centre for the Performing Arts in Mumbai. Festival collaborations include The Aegean Arts International Festival, The Cayman Arts Festival, The Cheltenham Music Festival, and The GAP Arts Festival. Adam frequently engages with headlining media outlets such as BBC Radio 3 in addition to specialist broadcasters such as Colourful Radio, and he has worked
alongside leading presenters including Katie Derham and Sean Rafferty.
In addition to his solo career, Adam is also a devoted collaborative pianist, composer,
and conductor. He has joined forces with numerous fellow musicians including saxophonist Amy Dickson, double-bassist Chi-chi Nwanoku CBE, violinist Daniel Pioro, soprano Francesca Chiejina, and cellist Laura van der Heijden. In 2016 Adam became one of the first ever concerto soloists to perform with the Chineke! Orchestra, and he has since worked with esteemed conductors including Jonathon Heyward, David Curtis, Dwight Pile-Gray, Pete Harrison, and Timothy Carey.
A laureate of both the Stefano Marizza and HRH Princess Lalla Meryem international
piano competitions, Adam was a Hargreaves and Ball scholar at the Royal Academy of Music, where he studied with Christopher Elton before completing his master’s thesis in ethnomusicology at the University of Cambridge. Generously supported by The Keyboard Charitable Trust, Irish Heritage, The Hattori Foundation, The Macfarlane Walker Trust, The Talent Unlimited Foundation, and The Tillett Trust, he has taken masterclasses with renowned pianists including Anne Queffélec, Imogen Cooper, John Lill, Paul Lewis, Stephen Hough, and Yevgeny Sudbin. Adam recently collaborated with the British Council in France, working as an English Language Assistant in Paris between 2023 and 2024. He is currently a PhD candidate at the University of Glasgow, where he holds the James McCune Smith scholarship.
Antal Zalai
Antal Zalai was born in Budapest in a poor family of Roma ethnicity. His father, grandfather and great-grandfather were also musicians. When he was twelve, Hollywood superstar Monica Bellucci introduced him at the UNESCO gala in Paris, which was broadcast live on RAI. A year later, he played for Isaac Stern, who predicted a bright future for the young violinist. In the same year, Zalai played with conductor Paavo Järvi at a classical gala, on Swedish television. At the age of 15, he gained international recognition by performing Bartók’s Violin Concerto No. 1 at the Great Hall of the Franz Liszt Academy of Music as part of the concert celebrating the 80th birthday of Lord Yehudi Menuhin. Menuhin was also present there, and performed, too; he referred to Zalai as one of the most wonderful young violinists he had ever met.
Recently, he performed as soloist of the Nürnberg Staatsphilharmonie and the Brandenburger Symphoniker in Germany; the Casco Phil in Belgium, gave a Paganini recital at the LongLake Festival in Lugano, performed in Montreal with the Franz Liszt Chamber Orchestra, and appeared on stage in Mexico, Brazil, Kuwait, Russia, Belgium, Slovenia, and Hungary. During this period, Zalai several times performed two concertos in one concert.
Earlier, he had performed as soloist with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, the Orchestre National d’Île-de-France, the Romanian National Radio Orchestra, the Hungarian National Philharmonic Orchestra, the Lithuanian National Symphony Orchestra, the Zagreb Soloists, the Irish Chamber Orchestra, and the Hong Kong Sinfonietta. In Vienna, he debuted in the Wiener Symphoniker’s “Frühling in Wien” gala concert, conducted by Fabio Luisi. The event, held in the Golden Hall of the Musikverein, was broadcast live on television by ORF and 3SAT.
In the course of his career so far, Zalai has performed in forty countries in four continents, together with such conductors as Yoel Levi, Lawrence Foster, Gilbert Varga, Ludovic Morlot, Laurent Petitgirard, Shlomo Mintz, Enrique Batiz, Peter Gülke, Zoltán Kocsis, Tamás Vásáry, Gábor Káli and Gábor Takács-Nagy. His recordings, released by Brilliant Classics, Hungaroton, and BMC Records, include Enescu’s violin sonatas and Bartók’s complete works for violin.
