Concert pianist Clare Hammond makes a very welcome return to the Courtenay Centre, Newton Abbot on November 16.

Her previous 2018 recital for NADSA of well-known composers and repertoire had wowed the audience: her ‘delicacy of touch’ and ‘subtlety of phrasing’ as well as ‘pyrotechnics’ just lit the auditorium.

Acclaimed as a ‘pianist of extraordinary gifts’ (Gramophone) and ‘immense power’ (The Times), Clare is recognised for her imaginative playing, visionary programming and communicative performance style. She won the Royal Philharmonic Society’s Young Artist Award in 2016, has performed twice at the Proms and has an extensive discography.

Hammond has performed in concert halls and at festivals across Europe, and is regularly broadcast on BBC Radio 3 and other European radio networks. She has collaborated with artists including the Carducci, Brodsky, Endellion, and Badke quartets, and Henning Kraggerud, Andrew Kennedy, Jennifer Pike, and Lawrence Power.

In November, her programme will be very different: apart from the intriguing contemporary work, Internal Victories, facilitated by the brilliant young composer, Michael Betteridge, Clare will play works by five composers – and they are all French. More significantly, from the oldest (born 1857) to the youngest (born 1892), the concert will encompass a span of only 35 years.

Titans, Debussy and Ravel, will be performed as well as three ‘unknowns’ – Mél Bonis, Germaine Tailleferre and Cécile Chaminade – all women.

Clare’s performance will artfully weave together voices both familiar and unjustly neglected. She will open with selections from Mél Bonis’s evocative Femmes de Légende, before presenting Germaine Tailleferre’s spirited Partita – a work that showcases the wit and sophistication of the only female member of Les Six.

These discoveries frame the afternoon’s centrepiece: Ravel’s kaleidoscopic Miroirs and elegant Sonatine, alongside Debussy’s first book of Images. This 1905 composition represents French piano writing at its most innovative: it captures light, movement, and atmosphere with unprecedented subtlety. The programme closes with Cécile Chaminade’s poignant reflections in Autrefois and Au pays devasté.

Clare possesses a rare gift of making new repertoire accessible to her audience. As well as performing and recording, she works in schools and prisons, involving about 4,000 school children and 300 prisoners every year. Clare will be performing Internal Victories in ten prisons across the UK in the 2025/26 concert season.

Internal Victories was co-created with participants at HMP Oakwood and composer Michael Betteridge. It incorporates sounds from participants’ experiences of prison which were then modelled using graphic scores and translated into sound at the keyboard. The men wished to show that, while there is a great deal of sadness and reflection in prisons, it can also be a place of resilience, transformation and hope.

No doubt, once again, Clare promises to intrigue and delight her Newton Abbot audience.

This NADSA concert, sponsored by the C&M Pike Trust, will be performed at the Courtenay Centre, Newton Abbot, on Sunday 16th November at 3:30pm.

Tickets for the concert must be bought in advance online www.nadsa.co.uk or, failing that, on 01626 717730 between 10am an 5pm.