The Keyboard Trust

The Birthplace of the Keyboard Trust, the one-time National Westminster Hall in the City of London

The Performers (left to right) Nigel Allcoat, Leslie Howard, Ian Munro, Andrew Wilde, Iwan Llewelyn-Jones, Maria Garzon and (hidden) Jean-Louis Steuerman

Noretta and John with
Sir Antonio (Tony) Pappano

The snow had begun to fall softly that February day in 1991. By early evening its loose mass became treacherous under a brittle and doubly slithery crust. The car descended the slope to the Old Banking Hall in Old Broad Street almost under its own weight. Especially on her 6Qth Birthday, it had been more difficult than usual to enthuse Noretta to turn out for an event which I had been at pains to describe as one of my 'City functions', making it clear that I expected to share her boredom. It would be a duty call for us both.

All that changed in a flash, literally of flashlights, as we walked through the door. Instead of the City Beagle there was a sea of friendly faces, wellwishers with 'Happy Birthday's, embraces and high expectancy. They had been bidden to a concert to honour Noretta's 60 years and to listen to some of her advanced students. Assembled in the oriental splendour of the original National Bank's Banking Hall, amid solid marble columns proclaiming that institution's wealth amassed in Empire and beyond, was some of the cream of London's music world, together with our music-loving friends and those for whom we wanted it to become a habit. On the stage stood three Steinway concert grands, enthusiastically prepared by Leslie Howard, himself one of Noretta's star students.

It had begun with an idea for a birthday tribute, to honour Noretta's work in grooming young concert pianists and helping to prepare their careers. Surely she deserved a public concert by some of her best, as would they the chance to shine in public. Only as I realised that most were not the ones who any longer needed that exposure did I think of all the other brilliant talents out there who lacked such an opportunity.

Even as an accomplished diplomate with a self-evident talent, how do you get onto a concert platform to charm your public? And if doing the circuit of music societies and prize concerts begins to establish your name, how do you make it known also in the important music centres of the world outside? Only the rare winner of a major competition will be offered a chance of concerts outside the home patch. What it needed was an organisation that offered a wide range of internationalperforming opportunities, coupled with the funds to get to them. And only that could enable the really talented to make the transition from formal education to a professional international career.

By the time of the birthday concert, Claudio Abbado and Alfred Brendel had agreed to head a body of Trustees, which there enabled Alfred to read out a message from Claudio announcing the launch of the new Keyboard Trust for Young Professional Performers. Two years later it had its Christening at the Royal Festival Hall when Claudio Abbado, Evgeny Kissin and the then ECYO, with assistant conductor Mark Wigglesworth, provided it with the silver spoon; this also allowed it to register a  respectable  identity  with  the  Charity Commission. Steinway & Sons offered the new the hospitality of Steinway Hall and its glorious  instruments.  Once  the  level  of  Steuerman. excellence had been established, that privilege spread to Steinway Halls in Berlin, Munich, now Cologne, New York, and even into the Steinway Factory in Hamburg itself.

Audiences, too, were built initially on our widely assorted circles of friends, colleagues and relations, then multiplied with their own. Among our most loyal helpers and followers from the early days have been our Cousins Sibylle (nee Reitzenstein) and Patrick Rabut in Frankfurt, whose enthusiasm and generosity have regularly filled the Bechstein-Saal. First in Kronberg, then in Frankfurt, they have assembled discerning and supportive audiences that make an almost constant ritual of standing ovations for the Keyboard Trust's artists. Sibylle's elegant and creative post-concert dinners complete evenings whose offerings linger long in the mind. From time to time, Sibylle's Sisters, Astrid Sauerbruch in Bonn and Victoria Deecke  I inHamburg, offered precious help and hospitality. In New York, Caroline - once with Paris at her side as ever-attentive bartender - has built up similar loyalities, sustained by the irreplaceable Danny Danielli and the manifold help of Roger Rosen. The same ethos was transplanted spontaneously to Castleton VA, where Dietlinde Maazel valiantly continues to include the Trust in her Sunday concert series. In between, there are circles such as the musically avid retirement comuunities around Delaware and Philadelphia; John and Ursula Langton (ex-CDC) in Munich; whilst friends of friends have propagated the Trust in culturally rich pastures such as Mexico and Cyprus.

Among this category - now the majority - are splendid venues such as Brahms's Laeiszhalle in Hamburg, the Sala Maffeiana in Verona (home of Europe's oldest concert society), the Teatro Ghione in Rome, and the late Lorin Maazel's Festival Theatre in Virginia. In London, an agreement was reached at one time with the Brazilian Embassy for regular cycles of concerts in their splendid former Banking Hall in Trafalgar Square. A matter of great pride in recent years has been the annual Keyboard Trust Prizewinners Concert at the Wigmore Hall, at the initiative of Moritz von Bredow, who became a Trustee in 2011 and has been responsible for expanding the Trust's reach throughout Germany, in Turkey and even to Baghdad.

The Trust's growth has also been particularly vigorous in Italy where, in addition to Rome, its traditional platforms include the northern circuit of Verona, Vicenza, Padua, Venice and Trento, and a more recent one with the Orchestra Filarmonica Marchigiana covering the Adriatic cities of Ancona, Pesaro and Fabriano. In 2013 the Trust was invited to hold a 'Keyboard Trust Festival' for the consolation of the people of L'Aquila, still shell-shocked by the then recent earthquake which destroyed most of the old town.

Regular tours are available to Keyboard Trust artists throughout Germany, including Berlin, Hamburg, Cologne, Frankfurt, Munich, Dresden, Leipzig and provincial centres like Rheda­ Wiedenbruck. At one point the Trust was even allowed to hold a concert in the Beethoven­ Haus in Bonn. Another circuit covers the eastern side of the USA, where twice-yearly tours take in New York, Philadelphia, Delaware and Virginia - with past sorties to Bard College on the Hudson and Palm Springs in Florida. There are also two annual concerts in Monterrey and Torreon in Mexico.

Concerts have been held in Ankara and in Cyprus, and in the North Highlands of Scotland. There are also organ recitals at the famous Temple Church in London, and now a new branch of activities for players of Historical Instruments. Concerts on instrument collections like Finchcocks, Fenton House and Hatchlands have been extended also to the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, through collaboration with St Cecilia's House.

The Trust has active arrangements with some 50 venues in seven principal countries, which now enable it to hold at least that number of concerts each year, or even up to 60 when augmented by an on-off arrangement with the Italian CIDIM which operates in a further five countries of Latin America.

The main benefit for the artists is, of course, the ability to exhibit their prowess before international audiences and to create a wide following; but the partnership concept has also allowed them to be paid fees far more in line with commercial rates than the Trust itself could afford, and through the partners' public concerts to reach greatly increased audiences. More significantly, it has enabled the Trust to operate with extreme cost-effectiveness: its total expenditure has consistently equated to an all-up cost of a surprisingly low £1,300 per concert, including most of the artists' travel.

The fact that the Trust was able to invest even this small amount in its artists' future has been due wholly to private donations, which make up the entirety of its income. The generosity of the noted radiographer Marion Frank, who made over to the Trust most of the restitution moneys she had received from Germany for the seizure of her family's property, established a solid financial base. This was extended by other wellwishers, notably the great goodwill of Gabriella Bassatne, until the extraordinary beneficence of the world-renowned Italian jeweller and philanthropist Nicola Bulgari (now its Honorary President) began to give the Trust a firm annual donation income.

As to the beneficiaries, one of the very first in 1991was Paul Lewis, now among the top British artists and Artistic Director of the Leeds International Piano Competition. On an equally steep rise came the Ukrainian Alexander Romanovsky; among the more recent are the Australian Jayson Gillham, winner of the Montreal Competition; Alessandro Taverna, honoured by the Italian Head of State; another Ukrainian, Sasha Grynyuk' who has now also taken charge of the Trust's 25th Jubilee project, internet  broadcasting of artists' recordings; the Russian winner of the International Liszt Competition, Vitaly Pisarenko; the British Alexander Ullman and Alkan specialist Mark Viner. Drawn from currently 35 different nationalities, many others have over time gone on to win coveted prizes in major competitions, and just on half to make substantial careers as soloists or in academia, or both. Bearing in mind the vagaries of artistic endeavour, that must rank as a handsome outturn.

New entrants are now selected by a body of three Artistic Directors: the doyen and co­ founder Dr Leslie Howard who judges numerous competitions and is renowned for his lectures and masterclasses; Dr Elena Vorotko, specialist in baroque music and instruments who also guides the period instrument section; and Christopher Axworthy, the immensely helpful owner of the Teatro Ghione in Rome who, together with the music broadcaster Valentina LoSurdo, is promoting the Trust's work throughout Italy. They, together with Moritz von Bredow, Sarah Biggs - since 2013 General Manager- and our long-serving Administrator, Sarah Moyse, have become the new life force of the Trust and dedicated guarantors of its future.

Thus each year the Keyboard Trust launches a stream of sublime music that would not otherwise be heard, played by the ablest of the younger generation who would not otherwise be performing. And it brings together annually some 20,000 people to hear them.

Now, 1,300 concert performances by some 250 young masters later, Noretta and I are delightfully surprised to receive a double MBE, 'for services to music and to young musicians'. Its real significance, however, lies in the public recognition of the Trust as an instrument of value and merit. Nothing vainglorious, but the proud insignia of ordinary people whose labours give the daily plod some meaning by impacting directly on the lives of others. We received the honours with the same humility that Claudio Abbado had towards his life's work, including the nurturing of the Keyboard Trust.

An equally proud recognition came in 2015 when, after the immense loss of Claudio Abbado, we approached Sir Antonio Pappano to become the Trust's Patron and continue its link with the great conductors. Both of them had, after all, begun their illustrious careers as pianists. And in 2017 Evgeny Kissin agreed to represent the younger generation of that profession to give them a living example of the heights it can reach.

Alfred Brendel reading a goodwill message from Claudio Abbado agreeing to become the principal Trustees of the Keyboard Trust

Sibylle Rabut preparing a concert in Frankfurt (with Patrick Rabut behind the camera)