ONE of the UK's top pianists will be performing live in Whitehaven this October.

The internationally-renowned musician Paul Lewis returns to perform Haydn piano sonatas in four concerts over two years.

The first concert at Rosehill Theatre takes place on Sunday 8, at 3pm.

Lewis, who last performed for Rosehill at St Bees’ Priory in May 2013, performs in the finest concert halls across the world.

He was the first to perform all five Beethoven Piano Concertos in a single season of the BBC Proms, to great critical acclaim.

Haydn’s works don’t get played as often as they deserve, as they contain some of the most startlingly original and irresistibly absurd piano writing in the entire repertoire.

There aren’t many composers whose music can raise a laugh from an audience, but Haydn certainly tops that short list.

The first of these four concerts will include Haydn’s Sonatas in C major and G major, Beethoven’s Six Bagatelles (opus 126),and Brahms’ Six Pieces for Piano (opus 118).

Paul Lewis is performing this series in a number of prestigious concert halls including the Carnegie Hall in New York, Recital Centre in Melbourne and Royal Festival Hall in London so this is a great opportunity to see a world class musician in the intimate setting of the beautifully-restored auditorium of Rosehill Theatre.

His numerous awards have included the Royal Philharmonic Society’s Instrumentalist of the Year, two Edison awards, three Gramophone awards, and the South Bank Show Classical Music award.

He appears regularly as soloist with the world's great orchestras, including the Boston Symphony, Chicago Symphony, London Symphony, Tonhalle Zurich, Leipzig Gewandhaus, and Mahler Chamber Orchestras.



Future dates for this series of concerts are scheduled for March and October 2018, and June 2019.

The concert on Sunday 8 starts at 3pm, and tickets are available from Rosehill Theatre.