BBC Young Musician winner joins forces with immersive art exhibition

Pianist Lara Melda will give six performances in conjunction with London’s immersive Van Gogh experience. Melda, who won the BBC Young Musician of the Year competition in 2010, will perform a programme of works that may have inspired famous Van Gogh paintings.

Exhibition Hub, the organiser of the multi-sensory experience, originally partnered with Melda earlier this month, with the aim of further enhancing the immersive exhibition. Following a positive response to the concert premiere Melda will return to perform as part of the exhibition this evening and again on 9 and 23 February.

Melda, who herself visited the exhibition before embarking on the partnership, said: ‘I was so affected and inspired by the exhibition that I began envisioning how incredible it would be if we added another sensory element to it - live music. Performing in the immersive room is so different to my usual concert setting where there is a definite separation between artist and audience.’

Inspired by the exhibition, Melda approached Exhibition Hub with the offer of performing live within the exhibition’s ‘immersive room’. She will play a C. Bechstein D grand piano provided by Jaques Samuel Pianos. The programme, which will be paired with projections of Van Gogh’s works, features well-known classics such as Debussy’s Clair de Lune and Erik Satie’s Trois Gnossiennes, along with Liszt, Poulenc, Beethoven and Chopin.