Fergus Johnston took part in a unique event for ten pianos in Sofia recently.

The ‘happening’ took place on 2 July as part of the piano and composition summer school run by internationally-renowned pianist Angela Tosheva and her composer partner Michail Goleminov.

In a piano shop across the road from the Academy of Music in Sofia, three composers, Johnston included, workshopped and then had performed by the students, pieces for ten pianos. Johnston’s piece, Games, was a once-off event, not to be repeated, in which the pianists listened for cues from one another which triggered them to play their music and/or cue other pianists to play. The composer described it as ‘pure fun to play and watch’.

The next day, pianist Magdalena Zagorska gave a performance of Dance from Three Piano Pieces, and Angela Tosheva herself gave a performance of the third of Raymond Deane's Afterpieces in a concert of the participants which took place in the Chamber Music Hall of the Bulgaria Concert Hall.