Morning Calm: Mengzi Zhang

Join us for Morning Calm with Mengzi Zhang, pianist from the Royal College of Music, who will be playing works by Satie, Ravel, Debussy, Felix Mendelssohn, Handel, JS Bach, Frescobaldi and François Couperin

Dates: Daily Monday - Friday

Time: 8.40-8.55am

Location: St George's Hanover Square, St George Street, W1

Morning Calm is a short piano recital beginning at 8.40am, consisting of around 10-12 minutes of music followed by a few minutes' silence for reflection and meditation before ending with brief prayers for the day ahead. You are most welcome to stay for the whole recital or if you would prefer not to stay for the Christian conclusion to leave just before the end. Morning Calm aims to offer a reflective and calm start to the day for people of any faith or none in the hustle and bustle of the West End of London.

As always admission is free.

Born in Xi'an, the ancient capital of China, Mengzi Zhang began studying piano at the age of 4. He continued his studies at the Xi'an Conservatory and won the 3rd prize at the Hong Kong International Piano Competition at the age of 14, then he furthered his education with Shucheng SHI, pianist and conductor of the China Philharmonic Orchestra. Since 2007 he has pursued his bachelor's degree at the Haute Ecole de Musique in Geneva under Elisabeth Athanassova, graduating with the highest average in instrumental performance, and holds a Master of Piano Performance and a Specialised Master of Historical Keyboards in Practice. During this process he focused on historical interpretation of western early instruments such as the forte-piano, harpsichord, clavichord and clavicytherium.

During his historical keyboard training Mengzi was taught technique and musical aesthetics by forte-pianists and harpsichordists from two major schools: Michel Kiener, pupil of Gustav Leonhardt and Isabelle Nef, and Pierre Goy, pupil of Luciano Sgrizzi and Paul Badura-Skoda. Fascinated by the expressive possibilities of early instruments, he also followed courses for the Medieval and Renaissance music given by Francis Biggi and Jean-Yves Haymoz.

Megzi gives numerous concerts as a soloist or in chamber music in Europe and China. Among the notable ones are ‘Beloved Beethoven’ in Shanghai Concert Hall, where he performed Beethoven's nine symphonies (forte-piano quartet version arranged by Hummel) in four days and five concerts. He is also regularly invited by the Lianshan Symphony Orchestra to perform piano concertos. His new CD, “To the Gracious Franz” of Haydn's sonatas and fantasias, was recorded on his original forte-piano Kulmbach and released in 2024. An album of Mozart's sonatas for piano and violin with Baroque violinist Cui Hongxia is also being published. He teaches an optional course of early keyboards instruments in Xi’an Music Conservatory and frequently shares his knowledge of early instruments and performance practice during master class and seminars in many universities and music schools.

Mengzi is the founder of the Early Music Saison Amarcordes in China, which since 2017 has seen instrumentalists, musicians, musicologists and museum curators gathering to hold concerts and exchange knowledge of early instruments. He also frequently collaborates with Shanghai Camarata and Sound of Baroque Concerts China.

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