Book Tickets

The performance lasts 30 minutes with a 30 minute Q&A. Víkingur Ólafsson’s recording of original works and piano transcriptions of music by Johann Sebastian Bach was one of the most lauded releases of 2019 and won BBC Music Magazine’s Recording of the Year award. The Icelandic pianist has spent decades finding his own way of playing – and indeed owning – Bach, putting his superlative sense of articulation and evenness of touch in service of the poetry of Bach famous and lesser-known, grand and unassuming. Now the pianist with the colossal following comes to the Sheldonian Theatre presenting his Bach transcriptions that delicately balance the old and new, the familiar and the unexpected.