NextThreeDays: Event Display

Talk: "A Life of Creativity" with Nick van Bloss
Venue: Performance Hall (Covington Center), Radford
Directions: Google Map Link
Organizations: Nick van Bloss, Radford University College of Visual & Performing Arts
Date: Thursday, October 2, 2025
Time: 7:30 - 8:30 PM
Event Types: Arts & Theatre, Speaking Engagements
Cost: Free

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Description:
Radford University College of Visual & Performing Arts presents the talk titled "A Life of Creativity" with musician Nick van Bloss on Thursday, October 2, 2025 inside Performance Hall located within the Covington Center on the campus of Radford University.

Internationally acclaimed pianist and artist-in-residence, Nick Van Bloss, will present “A Life of Creativity". Join Nick as he recounts his musical and personal journey with Tourette syndrome, what he’s learned about the importance of creativity, and how music has been an antidote in his life.

Nick van Bloss was born in London and began piano lessons at the age of 11. His musical training began as a chorister at Westminster Abbey and he entered the Royal College of Music at the age of 15 where he studied with Yonty Solomon. In 1987, on hearing him play, the great Russian virtuoso, Tatiana Nikoleyeva, described van Bloss as the ‘finished article of a pianist’. After winning multiple competitions whilst still a student at the Royal College, he went on to study with Benjamin Kaplan in London.

Aged 26, Nick van Bloss played a televised concert in Poland at the Chopin Festival. This proved to be his last public appearance for 15 years - a time in which he effectively retired from music. During these years van Bloss rarely touched a piano, but he did write his autobiographical memoir ‘Busy Body’, which was published to much acclaim in 2006. The following year he presented a BBC television documentary inspired by his book, exploring his creativity. This led to public interest in his piano playing and, in 2008, he began a series of recordings with award-winning producer Michael Haas, beginning with Bach’s monumental ‘Goldberg’ Variations, and including a recording of Bach’s Keyboard Concertos with the English Chamber Orchestra.

Nick is the only acclaimed concert pianist in the world who suffers from severe, non-swearing Tourette Syndrome, a condition that causes him some 70,000 bodily tics per day.

In April 2009, van Bloss made a ‘comeback’ concert at London’s Cadogan Hall, playing a concerto by Bach and Beethoven’s ‘Emperor’ Concerto with the English Chamber Orchestra. The concert, uniformly reviewed as a ‘Triumph’ by London’s critics, attracted massive television and media attention from all over the globe.

Despite choosing to only perform occasionally, Nick van Bloss has performed recitals and concertos in the United States, Japan, Sweden, the Baltics, the Netherlands, United Kingdom, Canada, Germany and Austria, Portugal and Spain, and with the English Chamber Orchestra conducting concertos from the keyboard. He was hailed as a ‘Genius without Vanity’, by the press after his Austrian debut, and was recently described by Latvian Radio as ‘The Legendary British Pianist’, after his Baltic tour of Beethoven Piano Concertos with Sinfonietta Riga, conducted by Thomas Sanderling. His 2018, all-Beethoven recital at London’s Wigmore Hall received outstanding reviews and he was immediately invited back to perform Bach’s Goldberg Variations for the following season. His recording of Chopin’s 3rd Sonata and the 24 Preludes was released in 2013, and his 2015 recording of Beethoven’s Diabelli Variations has been hailed as ‘the standard by which other recordings can be judged’, and the CD was further awarded the ‘Supersonic Award’ from Europe’s Pizzicato Magazine.

In addition to a performing career, Nick is a powerful and inspiring public speaker.

Link: https://www.nickvanbloss.com/

The talk is free and open to the public.

For more information, visit: https://calendar.radford.edu/cvpa/event/14459-nick-van-bloss-a-life-of-creativity or https://www.facebook.com/RadfordArts or https://www.instagram.com/rucvpa/.