Jacob Barnes - Grieg Piano Concerto

Date: Tuesday 18 March 2008

Jacob Barnes played the Grieg Piano Concerto in A Minor at the weekend; here follows a review of his performance:

Dear Jake,

I'm still on a 'high' after your excellent performance today. I hope you are feeling equally good and enjoying your evident success with the public. I thought that you must have worked very hard last week, because the playing was on a different level from last week. Vanya was extremely enthusiastic and said that you had tremendous maturity and the ability to 'play' with ideas and do it differently each time. Actually, she couldn't stop raving about you! I was particularly impressed with your sound, both in soft passages and particularly in the biggest moments in the piece, when your sound was tremendous - very unusual for someone so young. Curtis Price (The director at the Senior RAM) said that usually, in the Duke's Hall, the sound went upwards, but he could hear every note in your performance. That also impressed me, as usually, with young performers, they get lost in the orchestral sound, and you didn't, even for a moment. You 'dominated', in the right sense of the word, whilst at the same time playing with the orchestra well, and playing the softer moments with great sensitivity. It was always evident that you were listening well.

It was very exciting performance and I was extremely proud of you. I feel that it was a tremendous achievement for a first concerto performance with orchestra.

Have a good Easter,

Love from Tessa xx

Tessa is Jacob's piano teacher - Tessa Nicholson. A further review was offered by Jonathan Willcocks, the Director of the Junior section of the Royal Academy:

Jacob – I thought that your performance on Saturday was a real tour-de-force, and so did Curtis Price (The director of the Senior RAM) ! You did so much more than just play the piece; it was musically very commanding and the range of tone and colour that you got out of the instrument was exceptional. It says a lot that in listening to your playing one forgot what a damned difficult piece it is technically too!

Bravo and have a good Easter.

Best wishes - Jonathan

Jonathan Willcocks

Director - Junior Academy

Clearly, we must make the most of Jacob while we have him - and we must follow his post St Edmund's career with real interest!