Trio Musae to run a free masterclass at Burgh House on Oct 21

YEARS ago, I used to see an old man in a crumpled raincoat by the lifts at Hampstead station, looking derelict and like he was about to ask for contributions to a hostel for the night. But he was actually Hans Keller: writer, broadcaster and luminary of the musical intelligentsia who, with his artist wife Milein Cosman, lived in Willow Road, then Frognal Gardens, where the great and good from Benjamin Britten downwards came to pay him court.

I never dared approach him: he was fierce, formidable. But I did get to know Milein, whose sketches of musicians would eventually adorn the public areas of Wigmore Hall. And I’m pleased that the work of this celebrated couple, now both dead, survives in the Cosman Keller Trust, whose latest venture is a pioneering series of music residencies at Hampstead’s Burgh House.

They start Oct 21 with a free public masterclass in which the young Trio Musae work on repertoire they then deliver in a formal concert the following day, Oct 22. Alongside the performances is an exhibition of Milein’s pictures. And over it all will hang the spirit of Hans with his dishevelled look but dazzling mind. Details: cosmankellertrust.org

• Also in Hampstead, the Keats Foundation has a season of events running at Keats House, curated by the poet’s biographer Lucasta Miller. And connected with it are two concerts, Oct 18, that include the premiere of a song cycle by Scott Stroman based on Keats texts. Celebrated tenor Adrian Thompson is the soloist, with chamber choir Eclectic Voices. Details: eclecticvoices.org.uk

• Talking of tenors, Ian Bostridge (who happens to be Lucasta Miller’s husband) has an all-Schumann recital with pianist Vadym Kholodenko at Wigmore Hall, Oct 22. And the day before, Oct 21, the Wigmore hosts the Choir of King’s Cambridge – removed from the super-resonance of that great college chapel where voices float without effort, but no doubt holding up in a programme of Purcell, Poulenc and others to mark the 80th birthday of promoter Raymond Gubbay (who had a long if unlikely relationship with King’s, organising its tours). wigmore-hall.org.uk

• The Ora Singers have a uniquely distinguished track-record for commissioning new works, and they’ve now reached their 100th – composed by Brett Dean – which premieres at the Wigmore on Oct 24 in a lunchtime concert to mark the choir’s first decade since it was founded by conductor Suzi Digby. A celebration of big round numbers. wigmore-hall.org.uk

• Concerts tend not to be democracy in action: you take what you’re given and applaud it. But the Bloomsbury Festival hosts an exception at Holborn’s City Lit, Oct 18, where a words and music recital, What If?, will tell a First World War love story but give the audience a chance to vote on how it ends. Kieran Rayner sings, Gamal Khamis plays. And my guess is it will end unhappily – but who knows? bloomsburyfestival.org.uk

• A war story that managed not to end badly was that of the pianist Wladyslaw Szpilman who survived the nightmare of the Warsaw ghetto, resumed his career, and acquired enduring status through Roman Polanski’s film The Pianist. Now he lives on in a stage adaptation of the film that features his own music and runs at the Park Theatre N4, Oct 18-Nov 28. parktheatre.co.uk