Morning Calm: Quoc Nguyen

Join us for Morning Calm with Quoc Nguyen, pianist from the Royal College of Music, who will be playing works by Haydn, Chopin, Robert Schumann, JS Bach, and Tchaikovsky

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.

Vietnamese pianist Quoc Nguyen is currently a Doctoral student at the Royal College of Music, where his supervisors are Dr Sarah Fuchs and Professor Richard Langham Smith. His current project explores the different nuances of masculinities as manifested by opera singers who performed on the late nineteenth-century French stage. He also graduated from the same institution with a Master of Music degree under the tuition of Danny Driver.

Quoc began his training at Ho Chi Minh City Conservatoire of Music at the age of nine and completed his bachelor’s degree with Distinction. From 2016 to 2018, he also had regular lessons with British Vietnamese pianist Tra Nguyen, who encouraged him to further his studies in the UK. Quoc has participated in several national and international piano competitions, the most recent being Premio Schumann International Piano Competition held in Tuscany, Italy in April 2019 where he was a finalist. Before that, he was awarded third prize at HCMC International Piano Competition in 2017. Quoc performs regularly at local professional music festivals and summer courses in Saigon, where he made his début concert with a programme including Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 2. Recent highlights in London include performances at various venues of the RCM as well as recitals given at different churches.

Quoc’s enthusiasm for solo repertoire is matched by his great interest in chamber music. Between 2014 and 2017, he received intensive coaching sessions with British contemporary cellist and composer Zoë Martlew as well as the award-winning Notosquartett from Germany. He hopes to use his time at the Royal College of Music to pursue both his pianistic and academic interests.