Out of more than 500 applicants, talented Sevenoaks School pupils Nina del Ser (Y10) and Lou Warnett (Y7) were selected to perform in Lang Lang’s piano orchestra last weekend at the Royal Festival Hall.

Chinese pianist Lang Lang, now one of the foremost pianists in the world and an ambassador for music, spent the week of 16-22 May 2011 in residence at London’s Southbank Centre. The final concert was a massive event for 50 Steinway grand pianos and 100 young pianists, all performing at the same time.

Nina, one of the special award-winners, was also invited to perform a solo as part of the concert. Introduced by Lang Lang, Nina performed Rachmaninov’s Etude-Tableau in E flat Minor Op 33 under the watchful eyes of the master.

Performing to a packed hall of 2500 people, Nina’s riveting and assured performance showed clearly that she is a young virtuoso in the making. All the technical difficulties of the Etude disappeared in the capable hands of Nina, and out of the piano emerged lonely pairs of sighing notes and whirling sounds that evoked snowstorms in the Russian expanse.

Nina was also interviewed during a Channel 4 News feature on Lang Lang last week: