Classics Reloaded is a concert experience that reimagines three centuries of keyboard music through the encounter of two instruments and two traditions. Ukrainian pianist Alexey Botvinov — People’s Artist of Ukraine, Deutsche Grammophon recording artist, and the only pianist alive to have performed Bach’s Goldberg Variations over 300 times on stage — joins Burhan Öçal, the Turkish-Swiss master of the darbuka whose collaborations with Sting, Joe Zawinul, Fazıl Say and the Kronos Quartet have made him one of the most celebrated percussionists of our time. 

Their partnership began in 2010 and has captivated audiences across more than 20 performances at major international venues, including the Montreux Jazz Festival, Tonhalle Zurich, and stages in Paris, Basel, Abu Dhabi and Moscow. The programme spans from Bach’s Goldberg Variations and Beethoven’s Pathétique through Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition to contemporary works by Philip Glass, Max Richter, Ludovico Einaudi, and Adnan Saygun — each reimagined through a dialogue between piano and percussion that is at once ancient and startlingly new. 

This is the London premiere of one of classical music’s most daring cross-cultural collaborations.