This is the CHAIRMAN’S REPORT for the Year Ending 31[st] March 2025, which I shall endeavour to keep as short as possible.
Over the year, 9 monthly “free to Members” Concerts were held at Westminster Cathedral Hall, as well as 2 Members’ Matinées in private houses and a Young Artist’s Concert at Steinway Hall – by kind permission of Steinway & Sons.
On April 28[th] Gabriele Strata was the pianist, followed by Riyad Nicolas on May 26[th] , Craig Sheppard on June 9[th] , Margaret Fingerhut on 29[th] September, Dmitri Alexeev on October 20[th] , the Rosamunde Trio on November 17[th] , Rose McLachlan on January 26[th] , Danny Driver on February 23[rd] and Bobby Chen on March 23[rd] . The Robert Turnbull Piano Foundation for Young Pianists generously gave the Society a donation of £5,000 to go to performances by pianists under the age of 30. We were very grateful to Rupert Christiansen, the writer and critic, who has been administrating the Foundation for making this possible. Both Gabriele Strata and Rose McLachlan’s concerts were supported by this donation, as was the Young Artist’s Concert at Steinway Hall given by Gabrielė Sutkutė on July 3[rd] .
Members’ Matinées took place at Petersham Lodge, Richmond, on July 21[st] and Carlisle Place SW1 on 15[th] December. The Matinée at Petersham Lodge was kindly hosted by Princess Josephine Loewenstein with, as usual, a delicious tea, and the Matinée at Carlisle Place, hosted by our Legal Adviser Leslie MacLeodMiller, was a wonderful Christmas Celebration. Our thanks go to Princess Josephine and Leslie for their exceptional generosity.
Another event was held by the Society for the second time in a row. This was the Summer Evening at Hatchlands Park on July 7th. It is always a thrill to visit this fabulous collection of important instruments and hear Alec Cobbe demonstrating and talking about them. An excellent concert was given by Andrzej Wierciński, who was also supported by the Robert Turnbull Piano Foundation.
This would have been a perfect evening except that the bus company who took many of the audience down to Hatchlands proved to be a complete dud. The driver turned up late as he could not find the pick-up point, then got lost driving out of London. He appeared to be drunk. Those who had taken the bus turned up late, and as a result everything was delayed. The champagne grew warm, and the supper was over cooked.
1
Passengers then had to wait over an hour to be picked up at the end of the evening. It was only thanks to the efforts of Adam Repa who oversaw the bus arrangements, that the company sent out a bus to take people back, as the original driver had simply gone off home!
It was a cold, wet night and it was simply unthinkable to leave everyone waiting in the car park. Thankfully, the nice National Trust lady allowed people to wait in the house, which should by rights have been closed by then. So complete disaster was avoided.
Personally, I consider the behaviour of the bus company criminal, but we are too small an organisation to be able to take legal action against them. I am pleased to say that over a long period of hiring buses, this is the first time we have had any trouble. In fact, we used the same company in 2023 and had no problems at all.
Financially the event was a success, thanks to the generosity of Sir David Davies who contributed £5,000 worth of sponsorship. There were other sponsors as well: Monsieur & Madame Richard Armand, Mrs. Elzbieta Stanhope, and an anonymous Patron. As a result, a profit of over £3,000 was made. Without sponsorship it is impossible for this event to break even, as tickets are £65, but the actual cost works out at £100 a head.
Our largest and most successful event during the year up to March 31[st] 2025 was the Promotional Concert & Reception we held for the XIXth International Chopin Competition in Warsaw.
Secretary Gillian Newman and I were invited to Warsaw in March 2024 to attend the Celebration of the 90[th] Anniversary of the Warsaw Chopin Society, which took place in the Royal Castle.
While we were there, we had the opportunity to meet Dr. Artur Szklener, Director of the Fryderyk Chopin Institute of Warsaw, and Aleksander Laskowski, its Press Spokesman.
They asked if we would be prepared to hold a promotional event for the Warsaw International Chopin Competition due to take place in October 2025 – as we had done in 2019 for the previous Competition. It would be co-financed by the Ministry of Culture & National Heritage of the Republic of Poland.
We agreed to hold the event in conjunction with the London International Chopin Competition for Young Pianists – who sent out many of the invitations –
2
and of course the Fryderyk Chopin Institute of Warsaw, and planned it for November 2024, at Westminster Cathedral Hall.
It took place on the evening of November 24[th] , with many invited guests. There was an introduction from Mr. Laskowski and a concert given by Martin Garcia Garcia, 3[rd] prize winner of the last Warsaw Competition.
Dr. Szklener promised to make some tickets for the last rounds of the Competition in 2025 available to a limited number of our members. Therefore, a party of 12 has been got together for a visit to Warsaw this October.
This trip was originally planned to take place last year, but with the guarantee of Competition tickets, it was postponed by mutual consent. The itinerary will also include visits to the Chopin Museum and Zelazowa Wola.
Co-Chairman, Marek Ostas, who has made all the arrangements for the visit, has been invited as a guest of the Competition, as have Gillian and myself.
The Chopin Society is often happy to support Chopin-related projects arranged by other organisations, provided we know that they will be properly run. One such is the Chopin Festival at POSK (the Polish Centre in Hammersmith), ably organised every year by one of our Members, Janusz Sikora-Sikorski.
At the last one, held on October 19[th] 2024, I gave a talk “Mysteries surrounding Fryderyk Chopin”, which was followed by a talk by Professor John Rink on “The Young Chopin”, and then there was a concert in the evening.
We will be supporting the Festival again this October, and this time I will be talking to John Rink about the XIXth Warsaw Competition.
Another project dear to our hearts is the London International Chopin Competition for Young Pianists, organised by Piotr Michalik, Artur Haftman and Jenny Lee.
For the last few Professor Deniz Gelenbe and I have been on the jury. The Chopin Society also contributes £2,000 towards the running costs and a prize for the 1[st] prize-winner in the senior category. Mr. Filip Slipaczek also donates sponsorship through the Chopin Society.
This year (2024-2025) the Competition held its finals on March 4[th] . Our prize went to Julia Elomaa, the winner in the senior category. There was also an outstanding Polish pianist who won one of the junior categories. I am hoping
3
that she and the 1[st] prize winner from 2023, Deva Miraa Sperandio, will play for our Young Artists’ concerts.
Over the past 10 months I have had a difficult time with my health with 3 stays in hospital. As a result, I have got rather behind with concert bookings.
The current membership year (2025-6) has been made a Year of Polish Pianists, but the details about that belong in the Chairman’s Report next year.
I will just say here that the Opening Concert with Rafal Blechacz on April 27[th] was a great success and was generously sponsored by our wonderful supporters Dr. & Mrs. Jozef Przybylski with £5,000, and others, including the Polish Cultural Institute in this Polish/British Cultural Year, Mrs. Elzbieta Stanhope, Steinway & Sons, Mr. Filip Slipaczek and several anonymous sponsors. All our thanks go to them.
Sadly, the Chopin Society has lost many of its good friends over the past year.
The wonderful pianist, Eugen Indjic, who played for the Society many times, died in the Spring. Then Roy Enfield, an academic and until 2022 Co-Chairman of the Society, passed away in the Summer, as did the Rt. Hon. Zamira Menuhin Benthall (daughter of Yehudi), who with her husband Jeremy Benthall was an Honorary Member, and did so much to save the Menuhin School. We also lost Peter Ray, a scientist who had studied with our late Honorary President, Sir Bernard Lovell, at Manchester University and served on our committee for nearly 20 years, as well as Members Nancy Beck, Philip Caine and Jean Baudrand, who will all be much missed by me and other members.
Last Summer our Steinway piano had to move out of its home in Westminster Cathedral Hall for a month while the Hall’s parquet floor was restored to its former glory. You will agree it looks fantastic now.
We then arranged for Steinway’s piano wizard, Ulrich Gerhartz, to come and look at and voice our piano. We are very privileged to have him look after it and it has never sounded better.
We were fortunate to have Julia Swann design and manage our website for many years. When she retired, we found someone to take over as a stopgap until we could find a firm to remake the site and run it. We have now found David Ross Digital Services who have revamped everything and keep it updated for us.
4
We also needed new computers as our old ones could not run Windows 11, and thanks to a generous donation from the Pennycress Trust, have now bought them and set them up.
Financially speaking things have gone well this year, particularly thanks to our kind sponsors.
The Chopin Society Committee remains the same, except for Angelina Cayzer Anelli, who has retired.
Because I am trying to reduce the length of this report, I am not going to name all the Committee individually but simply say that in their various ways everyone has contributed significantly and proved invaluable.
Adam Repa and Yurie Lee as the Administrators will bit-by-bit be taking over all of Gillian Newman’s work. This will include running the concerts, editing the Newsletter, handling online publicity and ticket bookings, running our social media pages, instructing the website people, and handling membership applications and renewals. But not everything is decided yet.
There is a lot to do and finalise, and to facilitate matters we are very grateful to Gill for agreeing to stay on as Honorary Secretary until the end of the year. For the moment the Society’s address will remain 97A Onslow Square SW7 3LU. We will of course let everyone know when it changes.
There will indeed be many changes to enable things to run more easily and enable us to add to our income.
For the moment, the Newsletter will consist of printed A4 pages instead of a little booklet. This is how it was in the early days and it will certainly be easier and cheaper to produce. However, Adam and Yurie will have their own ideas on how it should appear.
There may sometimes be a change of venue. The Committee will certainly have a lot of discussing to do!
It only remains for me to thank the Committee for their hard work and reliability; Westminster Cathedral for the use of their Hall and the Administrator, Peter McNulty, who does everything he can to assist us; Steinway & Sons for their care of the piano; Treasurer Angela Delbourgo who has agreed to take on more work with book keeping, and also generously hosts our Committee meetings; Co-Chairman Marek Ostas for organising the trip to
5
Warsaw this October; Co-Chairman Charles Grant for taking on extra duties due to my doing less now, and Secretary Gillian Newman for staying on as Honorary Secretary for far longer than she had intended, in order to help with the changeover. Lastly, a big thank you to Adam Repa and Yurie Lee for agreeing to take on the Administration.
This is the end of the Chairman’s Report. I will now pass you to the Treasurer, Angela Delbourgo, for her report.
6
– The Chopin Society (London) Registered Charity No. 271562 Income & Expenditure for Main Chopin Society A/C at Lloyds for Year Ending 31[st] March 2025
Balance at Bank on 31[st] March 2024 13,704.13
Add INCOME
| Subscriptions | 14,987.50 | |
|---|---|---|
| Concert Income | 8,397.52 | |
| Members’ Matinées | 3,870.00 | |
| Mailings | 230.00 | |
| Merchandise | 285.75 | |
| Hatchlands Concert | 11,576.50 | |
| Promotion for Warsaw Chopin Competition | 11,000.00 | |
| Sponsors & Donations | 15,500.00 | |
| Allocation from Gala A/c | 15,000.00 | |
| Miscellaneous | - | |
| Warsaw Trip | 6,840.00 | |
| Error | 15,688.48 | |
| -------------- | ||
| Paid into Main A/c Year Ending 31stMarch 2025 | 103,375.75 | 103,375.75 |
| -------------- | ||
| 117,079.88 |
Less EXPENDITURE
| Artists’ Fees | 14,700.00 | |
|---|---|---|
| Venue Hire | 6,240.00 | |
| Postage, Printing & Stationery | 4,555.54 | |
| BT | 1,325.22 | |
| Extra Food, Wine, Help | 438.41 | |
| Hatchlands, including £2,000 for adoption of piano | 9,262.25 | |
| Promotion for Warsaw Competition | 7,717.78 | |
| Piano tuning, voicing, removals & storage | 4,162.80 | |
| Insurance, Lark, NGM. BAFM | 668.05 | |
| Honorariums | 21,700.00 | |
| Website & Computer | 5,198.51 | |
| Tickets for Warsaw Trip October ’25 | 4,810.00 | |
| Accounts check, Flowers, Expenses | 1,380.00 | |
| Miscellaneous | 752,38 | |
| Error | 15,688.48 | |
| ------------ | ||
| Expenditure paid out of Main A/c in Year Ending 31stMarch 2025 | 98,599.42 | 98,599.42 |
| ------------ | ||
| Balance in Main A/c 31stMarch 2025 | 18,480.46 |
1
– The Chopin Society (London) Registered Charity No. 271562
Income & Expenditure for Main Chopin Society Account at Lloyds For Year Ending 31[st] March 2025
Income from Chopin Society A/c for Year Ending 31[st] March 2025 Beside Income for Year Ending 31[st] March 2024
| 2024-2025 | 2023-2024 | |
|---|---|---|
| ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | ||
| Subscriptions | 14,987.50 | 11,728.00 |
| Concert Income | 8,397.52 | 7,100.87 |
| Members’ Matinée | 3,870.00 | 2,238.00 |
| Mailings | 230.00 | 80.00 |
| Merchandise | 285.75 | 55.50 |
| Donations & Sponsorship 2023-24 incl. £3,600 for 24-25 | - | 4,652.00 |
| Donations & Sponsorship in 2024-25 including £4,000 from | ||
| The Pennycress Trust, £5,000 from The Robert Turnbull | ||
| Piano Foundation & £5,000 from Dr. & Mrs. Przybylski | 15,500.00 | - |
| Hatchlands Concert including £5000 from | ||
| Sir David Davies in 24-25 | 11,576.50 | 4,763.00 |
| Promotion for Warsaw Piano Competition November ’24 | 11,000.00 | - |
| Allocation from Gala A/c 23-24 including | ||
| 10,000 for 24-25 | - | 20,000.00 |
| Allocation from Gala A/c in 24-25 | 15,000.00 | - |
| Miscellaneous | 2,839.25 | |
| Error | 15,688.48 | - |
| Ads | - | 1,595.00 |
| Tickets for Warsaw Trip | 6,840.00 | |
| ------------ | ------------ | |
| 103,375.75 |
55,051.62 |
2
– The Chopin Society (London) Registered Charity No. 271562
Income & Expenditure for Main Chopin Society Account at Lloyds For Year Ending 31[st] March 2025
Expenditure from Main Chopin Society A/c for Year Ending 31[st] March 2025 Beside Expenditure for Year Ending 31[st] March 2024
| 2024-2025 | 2023-2024 | |
|---|---|---|
| ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | ||
| Venue Hire | 6,240.00 | 4,472.00 |
| Artists’ Fees | 14,700.00 | 11,208.00 |
| Post Office, Printing & Stationery | 4,555.54 | 4,441.10 |
| BT | 1,325.22 | 1,211.99 |
| Extra Food, Wine & Help | 438.41 | 1,592.39 |
| Hatchlands concert (incl. £2000 for adoption of Chopin Pleyel) | 9,262.25 | 10,158.99 |
| Promotion for Warsaw Chopin Competition | 7,717.78 | - |
| Piano Tuning, voicing, removals & storage | 4,162.80 | 1,731.60 |
| Insurance, Lark, NFU, BAFM (£198.05) | 668.05 | 668.05 |
| Honorariums | 21,700.00 | 17,500.00 |
| Website & Computers | 5,198.51 | 1,547.21 |
| Tickets for Warsaw Trip | 4,810.00 | - |
| Accounts check, Flowers, Expenses | 1,380.00 | 855.61 |
| Miscellaneous | 752.38 | 3,423.99 |
| Error | 15,688.48 | - |
| Ads | - | 157.93 |
| Purchases | - | 187.19 |
| ------------ | ------------ | |
| 98,599.42 | 59,156.05 |
3
– The Chopin Society (London) Registered Charity No. 271562
Income & Expenditure for Gala (St. Nicolas) A/c at Lloyds For Year Ending 31[st] March 2025
| Balance in Gala Account on 31stMarch 2024 | 94,271.44 | |
|---|---|---|
| Add INCOME | ||
| Members’ Matinée | 25.00 | |
| Hatchlands Concert | 90.00 | |
| ------------- | ||
| Paid into Gala A/c | 115.00 | + 115.00 |
| ------------- | ||
| 94,386.44 |
Less EXPENDITURE
| Refund | 130.00 | |
|---|---|---|
| Allocation to Main A/c | 15,000.00 | |
| Part amount owed to Bookkeeper for 25years of book keeping | 15,000.00 | |
| Support for London Chopin Competition for Young Pianists, | ||
| including sponsorship from Mr. Filip Słipaczek paid into Main A/c | 2,500.00 | |
| ------------- | ||
| 32,630.00 | - 32,630.00 | |
| ------------- | ||
| Balance in Gala A/c on 31stMarch 2025 | 61,756.00 |
The Bookkeeper has kept books and Accounts since 2,000 and is retrospectively receiving 25,000 before retirement.
4
– The Chopin Society (London) Registered Charity No. 271562
Income & Expenditure for Gala A/c for Year Ending 31[st] March 2025 Beside Income & Expenditure or Year Ending 31[st] March 2024
| 2024-2025 | 2023-2024 | |
|---|---|---|
| Members’ Matinée | 25.00 | 14.00 |
| Hatchlands ticket | 90.00 | 80.00 |
| Refund | - | 130.00 |
| Subscription | - | 130.00 |
| ------------ | ------------- | |
| Total amount paid in | 115.00 | 354.00 |
Expenditure out of Gala Account for Year Ending 31[st] March 2025 Beside Expenditure for Year Ending 31[st] March 2024
| 2024-2025 | 2023-2024 | |
|---|---|---|
| Allocation to Main Account | 15,000.00 | 20,000.00 |
| Refund | 130.00 | - |
| Part of Amount paid to Bookkeeper for 25 years of bookkeeping | 15,000.00 | - |
| Support for London International Competition for Young Pianists | ||
| including £500 sponsorship from Mr. Filip Słipaczek | 2,500.00 | 2,500.00 |
| ------------- | ------------- | |
| Paid into Main Account | 32,630.00 | 22,500.00 |
5
– The Chopin Society (London) Registered Charity No. 271562 The Chopin Society Gross Income for Year Ending March 2025
| Main Chopin Society Account Gross Income | 103,375.75 |
|---|---|
| Chopin Society Gala (St. Nicolas) A/c Gross Income | 115.00 |
| -------------- | |
| 103,490.75 |
The Chopin Society Expenditure for Year Ending 31[st] March 2025
| Main Chopin Society Account Expenditure | 98,599.42 |
|---|---|
| Chopin Society Gala Account Expenditure | 32,630.00 |
| -------------- | |
| 131,229.42 | |
| Balance in Main Chopin Society A/c on 31stMarch 2025 | 18,480.46 |
| Balance in Gala A/c on 31stMarch 2025 | 61,756.44 |
6
16 Newenden Rd Wainscott Rochester Kent ME24NJ Dear Sir/Madam The Chopin Society UK I have examined the attached financial statements. In my opinion they appearto show a true and fairview of the state ofthe Chopin Society's affairs as at 31 March 2025. B Hepplewhite 2¢