FIFTEEN years after successfully securing funding for the Steinway Concert Grand Piano, the Cardigan-based Peter Gould Music Trust is presenting a season of recitals that will celebrate the very best of classical piano music can offer.

The event promises to be a wonderful showcase of young talent and the community’s grand piano. As ever, in a mission to encourage young people’s engagement with classical music, tickets for under-21s are £1.

Over the course of three recitals in the 2017-18 season, two award-winning young pianists and a critically claimed violinist will be making their Welsh debuts at Theatr Mwldan in Cardigan.

The extraordinary talent of the pianist Luka Okros will be starting the celebrations on Sunday, December 3.

Luka Okros is one of the most promising pianists of his generation. Georgian-born Luka finished his studies in London with a Master’s Degree at the Royal College of Music in 2013.

He then went on to win many prizes culminating with first prize at the Hannover Chopin International Piano Competition in 2017. This year he is performing internationally in Austria, Romania, India, Hong Kong and throughout Asia.

Luka will play a programme that celebrates all that is best about the sound of the piano with Schubert’s Impromptus, Op 90, probably his best-known music for the keyboard.

He will then play Chopin’s monumental fourth Ballade (Op 54). The concert will end with Rachmaninov’s six Moments Musicaux (Op 16) which are among the greatest works of late Romantic piano music combining strength and sonority with tenderness and beauty.

The second part of the 15th anniversary celebrations will be in the virtuosic hands of the pianist Florian Mitrea.

Double-laureate at both the 2015 Hamamatsu and 2014 ARD international competitions, Romanian-born British pianist Florian Mitrea was a prize-winner at the 2016 RNCM’s James Mottram and Verona International Competitions, too.

Florian will start the recital on Sunday, March 18 with Haydn’s Sonata in E flat major, the last and probably greatest sonata from one of the foremost classical composers.

Next, the D784 sonata is seen by many to herald a new era in Schubert's output for the piano, and to be a profound and sometimes almost obsessively tragic work, while Rachmaninov’s beautiful Prelude in b minor is a poetic view inspired by 19th century art, painted in lush chords.

He will round the recital off with Prokofiev’s Sonata in A major. There are many who assert that this is the jewel of the so-called ‘War Sonata’ trilogy. The Sixth is epic and dramatic with a deep expressive range and the writing being both dynamic and colourful.

The gifted and critically acclaimed young violinist Emmanuel Bach, with piano accompaniment from Jenny Stern, will put the finishing touch on this season of celebration on Sunday, April 22.

Emmanuel began studying the violin as a young child at the age of five and now, in his early 20s, already has an impressive musical and academic history.

The winner of many prestigious awards and scholarships, this gifted classical violinist with an extensive repertoire has performed as a soloist and with orchestras in South Africa and Europe.

Emmanuel has completed studying for a Masters at the Royal College of Music, studying with Natasha Boyarsky, as an HR Taylor Trust Scholar. He graduated in 2014 from Magdalen College, Oxford, with a double First Class Honours in Music.

Emmanuel is also a dedicated chamber musician, holds a research fellowship at the British Library for work on historical recordings and is in the process of recording a CD of miniatures.

The piano’s partnership with Emmanuel’s violin will be provided by South-African born pianist Jenny Stern, who has performed widely as a soloist, chamber musician and accompanist.

She studied at the Royal College of Music with Lamar Crowson, and later with Isabella Stengel, winning the prestigious Emma Smith Overseas Scholarship to remain in the UK.

Peter Gould Music Trust is a charity dedicated to promoting classical music and supporting young musicians in the South West Wales area.

For more information and to buy tickets, visit www.petergould.org and www.mwldan.co.uk