PROGRAM

• Gabriel Faure, Nocturne No. 6 in D Flat Major

• Beethoven, Rondo Allegro from the Sonata in D op 10 No. 3

• Songs from the Grease musical, Sandy, There are worse things I could do, Love is a many splendored thing.

BIO

Matthew Curtis graduated in 2015 with a first class honours degree in Music Performance from the London College of Music and also completed their performance diploma.

Throughout his performance degree he would have benefited from an alternative sized keyboard to perform a more demanding repertoire but this was clearly unavailable.

He became a self -employed local piano teacher in 2015 after graduating and remains in business today. His clients range from 6 to 65 but are mainly school aged children.

He noticed that most of my younger pupils were struggling to reach the keys and octaves with smaller handspans. He was campaigning with PASK for the need to manufacture narrower keyboards globally and became frustrated by the attitudes of top manufacturers.

In 2018 he had the opportunity to purchase a bespoke narrower 6.0 octave upright piano built by Clive Pinkham. This was a dramatic improvement for him and benefited most of his pupils. This instrument remains in his studio today and is popular with pupils and parents.

However for his personal handspan the 6.0 keyboard was still half an inch too wide to achieve a large optimal pianist handspan (9 inches). Fortunately the Narrow Keys company has now met the demand for a high quality professional narrow 5.5 keyboard.

In October 2025 he was very fortunate to acquire one of the first Athena 301 models. As he suspected he is now getting much more enjoyment from his higher level practice.  He looks forward to performing with the Stretto Festival once again this year.