Movements explores the symbiotic relationship between music and dance across four centuries of keyboard writing.

The curtain lifts with Bach’s first partita and its presentation of the principal dances of the baroque and late renaissance period with the Allemande, Courante, Sarabande, Minuet and lively Gigue. Rameau weaves a series of intricate variations from the French Gavotte. The first movement finishes with a selection of Chopin’s most famous Polish dances, the Polonaise, Mazurka and Waltz.

Ginastera’s pulsing Argentinian rhythms begin the second movement before the Tango and Oriental Dance by Albéniz and Granados. The Russian segment bursts to life with the first movement of Stravinsky’s Petruschka suite and concludes with Rachmaninov’s Polka, a virtuosic and humorous dance dedicated to his father Vasily. The programme concludes with Ravel’s colourful and inventive La Valse, the composer writing at one point in his ballet score, “we are dancing on the edge of a volcano”.

A wide-ranging programme which embraces the variety, joy and passion of the human desire to dance.

Rupert Egerton-Smith has not followed a conventional route into music. He studied History at University College, Oxford, before pursuing a career as a strategy consultant.

Returning to music after a ten-year break, he won several competitions and debuted at the Carnegie Hall. In 2020, he made a major life transition to follow his passion for music and build a career as a pianist and composer. In March 2025, he was appointed a Steinway Artist. He has performed in many prestigious venues internationally, including Paris’ Salle Gaveua, the Berlin Philharmonie and London’s Cadogan Hall.

In February 2024, he was invited to be guest soloist for HRH Queen Camilla at Salisbury Cathedral, performing with the Band and Bugles of The Grenadier Guards and Band of the Rifles Regiment, as part of a 100th anniversary celebration of Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue. Engagements on the East Coast of the US followed. He returned to Carnegie Hall in November 2024 by invitation of the Alexander & Buono Foundation, which has consistently supported his career, and received a standing ovation for his performance of Agosti’s transcription of Stravinsky’s The Firebird.

For more information, visit Rupert Egerton-Smith.