After leaving the competition, one of our 2024 competitors, Kyoshiro Hirama, was invited to visit Old Hastings House, a residential care home in the Old Town, on Wednesday 28 February 2024. The 25-year old Japanese pianist very kindly agreed to visit the home, where he played for more than 25 residents, in a programme that included Liszt, Prokofiev and Haydn. Some of the residents had attended one of the early rounds of the competition, but many others were unable to travel to the theatre, and so Kyoshiro kindly offered to visit them instead.

After the recital Kyoshiro said: “It was a great pleasure for me to perform for the residents. I was so happy since they listened to my performance intently and gave me a lot of warm comments after my concert. Although I was eliminated from the Hastings competition, the experience made me remember why I play the piano; I want my audience to be pleased.”