Yunchan Lim plays the Wigmore Hall

THERE’S a disturbing element of blood-sports in the big-league international piano competitions, but you can’t deny the excitement as young players for whom this may be their once-in-a-lifetime chance of success do battle for supremacy. The stakes are high. And none higher than with the Van Cliburn Competition in (of all the godforsaken places in the universe: I’ve been there) Fort Worth,Texas, which carries the biggest prize going. $100,000 plus a world tour.

Last year it was won by the youngest player in its history, an 18-year-old Korean of sensational ability called Yunchan Lim. And this coming week he sweeps into London for what should be a hot-ticket debut at Wigmore Hall, playing Bach and Beethoven.
Competition winners don’t always last the course: some flourish for a while then disappear. But there’s undoubtedly something special about Lim. He’s very young, but also absolutely focused, with charisma, and the likelihood of staying power. So if you want to witness the start of a potentially great career, be at Wigmore on Jan 18. wigmore-hall.org.uk

• That said, high-profile keyboard players seem to be queuing for attention in London just now, and another is Eric Lu, the almost equally young Asian-American (now 25) who won the 2018 Leeds Competition and has been dazzling audiences on both sides of the Atlantic ever since. He’s at the Queen Elizabeth Hall on Jan 15 to play Schubert, Chopin and Scriabin, and unlikely to disappoint. southbankcentre.co.uk

Then, on Jan 19 at the Wigmore, there’s the outstanding double act of pianist-partners Pavel Kolesnikov and Samson Tsoy playing (together and separately) Britten and Beethoven in a lunchtime recital. And also at the Wigmore, on Jan 13, you can hear the magisterial Igor Levit share the platform as accompanist to tenor Simon Bode in Schubert’s great song cycle Die Schone Mullerin. wigmore-hall.org.uk

But something else for enthusiasts to be aware of is a new piano series at St Mary le Strand, just off the Aldwych, designed to showcase the church’s brand new Steinway concert grand. Running two Fridays a month for the foreseeable future, it launches on Jan 13 with Danny Driver, the pianist who not long ago scored a huge success with a Hyperion recording of the formidably difficult keyboard works of Ligeti. For this programme it’s an easier-listening French repertoire by Ravel, Faure and Boulanger. citypromotions.co.uk

• It’s a subject not for the squeamish, but Irish National Opera is touring a new chamber work about the sister of John F Kennedy who suffered mental health issues and was persuaded to undergo a supposedly pioneering but in fact disastrous lobotomy in her early 20s. Written by Northern Irish composer Brian Irvine and staged by the always inventive Netia Jones, it’s called Least Like the Other: Searching for Rosemary Kennedy, and plays Covent Garden’s Linbury Theatre, Jan 15-19. roh.org.uk

• Finally, the Highbury Players have a concert of Villa-Lobos, Strauss and Brahms at Christ Church, Highbury Grove, on Jan 14: tickets from eventbrite.co.uk. And don’t forget the intimate Salon Music house-concert in Highgate I profiled last week – violinist Madeleine Mitchell and others playing Herbert Howells – on Jan 13: salonmusic.co.uk