Errollyn Wallen plays Wigmore Hall [Azzurra Primavera]

IF you listen to Radio 3 you might have heard Errollyn Wallen recently talking about her life and work as the station’s Composer of the Week; and if you didn’t, it’s still available on the website – complete with interesting details of her childhood in Belize and decidedly different life today, in a remote lighthouse on the north coast of Scotland where she endures the bleakness and terrible weather for the sake of solitude and quiet. Useful when you’re writing music.

That said, she’s also the constant traveller you’d expect of someone whose work gets performed worldwide. And she’s in London this weekend, partly to promote her new book Becoming a Composer, out from Faber in November, but also to make a (these days) rare appearance as a performer – in a lunchtime concert at Wigmore Hall, on Oct 28.

Wallen writes for orchestras, choirs, anything that moves. But what first brought her to public attention was a genre-crossing collection of songs written for herself to sing at the piano, halfway between classical and cabaret. They’re distinctive, quirky, often beautiful; and here’s an opportunity to catch them from their author’s mouth. You won’t regret it. wigmore-hall.org.uk

• It’s also a good week for catching pianists with two major names giving solo recitals: the maverick Piotr Anderszewski playing Bartok at the Barbican, Nov 2, (barbican.org.uk), and Piers Lane playing Chopin at Westminster Cathedral Hall, Oct 29 (chopin-society.org.uk). But there’s also Sam Haywood bringing Schubert and Beethoven to the new piano series at St Mary le Strand by the Aldwych, October 27 (stmarylestrand.com).

And at Wigmore Hall on November 1 is the extraordinary George Fu: a young American pianist I heard this summer in the Ryedale Festival and was knocked sideways by the charisma and intelligence that exploded from his fingers on the keyboard. A master in the making (wigmore-hall.org.uk).

• Staying with keyboard players but looking beyond the piano, take note of the harpsichordist Nathanial Mander who plays an intimate recital in the Salon Music series that runs at the Highgate home of Michelle Berriedale Johnson on Nov 4. He’ll in fact be playing not a harpsichord but a spinet. And what’s more, a brand new spinet, just made for him by a leading British craftsman but modelled on a 1754 Parisian original. By all accounts it’s a joy to behold. And though spinets make a soft sound, it’s perfect for the domestic circumstances of a house-concert like this. Check the website: salonmusic.co.uk

• It’s always good to find a bargain; and somewhere to start is the Royal Academy of Music where you can attend serious concerts with star names attached for £6-£8 – as is the case on Oct 27 when the magisterial conductor Sir Mark Elder leads the Academy’s student symphony orchestra through a programme of Sibelius, Ravel and Bax.

Also running this week is the RAM’s Autumn Piano Festival, with an entire day of events on Oct 31 given over to exploring Liszt’s Annees de Pelerinage: a sonic travelogue that takes the listener on a spiritual pilgrimage through Switzerland, Italy and back to the composer’s native Hungary. Details: ram.ac.uk