Adults definitely allowed

Next we come to Chetham’s International Piano Summer School, founded by Murray McLachlan, Head of Keyboard at Chetham’s School (a year-round specialist music school), in 2001. On the staff is his wife, the pianist Kathryn Page, who explains to me what McLachlan hoped to achieve. ‘Basically he wanted to raise the profile of the school, and attract more people from all over the world. It was a great success even from the first. In the first year – we weren’t even computerised then! – we had 92 students. Now we get well over 200, over two weeks.’ And what is different about this event from other schools, I ask? ‘It’s the biggest, for one thing: we have 60 pianists on the faculty. And one example of our innovation is the Adult Amateur course, which I run. It’s aimed at a certain type of pianist who feels nervous performing, or who is worried about their level. We all understand that feeling of nerves… so this is for absolutely all levels, and everyone is welcome. It’s enormously popular. And we run all sorts of other courses too – Alexander Technique, composition. It’s grown into something huge now.’ The website bills it as ‘the largest piano festival of its kind in Europe’ and ‘the friendliest piano festival in the world’, which – although some of the other summer schools might take issue – I’ve no reason to doubt. And if Page’s effervescence and enthusiasm is anything to judge by, it sounds like a hoot. This year the school runs 14-24 August. (Take care, if searching for it online, to go to pianosummerschool.com, and not the website for Chetham’s School – and also note that the Summer School for Pianists at Stowe has the address pianosummerschool.co.uk)