Penglei Liang (soprano) & Peng Lin (piano)

Free admission | Donations welcome

Programme

Gabriel Fauré: Au bord de l’eau, Op.8: No.1

Claude Debussy: Ariettes oubliées:

1. C’est l’extase langoureuse

5. Green

 Franz Schubert: Am See, D.746

Heimliches Lieben, D.922

Jacques Offenbach: The Doll Song / Les oiseaux dans la charmille – Les Contes d’Hoffmann

Piano solo:

F. Mendelssohn: Song Without Words 

Op. 67 No. 2 in F-sharp Minor

Op. 62 No. 6 in A Major ‘Spring Song’ 

Giuseppe Verdi: Caro Nome – Rigoletto

 Jonathan Dove: Between Your Sheets, Five Am’rous Sighs

 William Walton: A Song for the Lord Mayor‘s Table:

3. Wapping Old Stairs

5. The Contrast

Yi Zhou: Phoenix Hairpin钗头凤

St James’s is grateful for the generous support of Rolex for this music programme.

Artist Bio

Soprano Penglei Liang has just gained her Master’s degree in Performance with distinction at the Royal College of Music, supported by the Audrey Sacher Award, where she studied with Jeffrey Stewart and Bryan Evans MBE. She also holds a Master’s degree in Musicology from the University of Edinburgh.

Penglei debuted as a soloist in Orff’s Carmina Burana in Oxford, and has since appeared as the soloist in Rossini’s Petite Messe Solennelle, Saint-Saëns’ Oratorio de Noël in London and Aylesbury. She performed as the soloist at the Silk Road Concert supported by the Chinese Embassy. Operatic roles include Laoula (L’étoile), Elmira (Sosarme), Hélène (Véronique) and Elisetta (Il Matrimonio Segreto). Penglei joined the Grasmere Song 2025 with scholarship, where she had masterclass with Sir Thomas Allen. She participated in the RCM Song Plus Program, and received a masterclass with Pumeza Matshikiza. Her ensemble and chorus performances include Holst’s The Planets at the 2024 BBC Proms at the Royal Albert Hall, Madama Butterfly at St. John’s Smith Square, and Le Nozze di Figaro with the RCM Opera Studio. Penglei is invited as a concert soloist at the Great Malvern Festival of Singing in summer 2026.

Award-winning Chinese pianist Peng Lin is the First Prize winner of the 2023 Massarosa International Piano Competition and recipient of the Piotr Anderszewski Prize at the 2025 Vigo International Piano Competition. She made her New York debut at Lincoln Center in 2015, performing Mozart’s Piano Concerto K. 482 in Alice Tully Hall with the Juilliard Orchestra under Peter Oundjian. A laureate of numerous international competitions, she has also received major prizes at the Rina Sala Gallo International Piano Competition, the Rhodes International Piano Competition, and the UK Open Piano International Piano Competition.

 Peng Lin has performed in leading venues worldwide, including Carnegie Hall, Alice Tully Hall, and Shanghai Concert Hall, and has appeared at major festivals such as the Aspen Music Festival, Banff Summer Arts Festival, Capraia Music Festival, and the Taos Chamber Music Festival.

Born in Kulangsu (Gulangyu), China’s ‘piano island’, she made her orchestral debut at the age of nine. At sixteen, she received a full scholarship to The Juilliard School, where she completed both Bachelor and Master of Music degrees. She continued her studies at the Yale School of Music (Master of Musical Arts), the Royal College of Music in London (Artist Diploma), and graduated with the highest distinction from the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia in Rome in 2024. Her mentors include Yoheved Kaplinsky, Hung-Kuan Chen, Peter Serkin, Dmitri Alexeev, and Benedetto Lupo.

Alongside traditional repertoire, Peng Lin is deeply committed to contemporary music and live improvisation. She recently recorded Beethoven Moonlight Sonata on fortepiano and continues to develop projects that combine historical performance practice with new music and improvisation.

Follow @penglinpiano on instagram, http://www.youtube.com/@penglinpiano and www.penglinpiano.com for updated information.

Presented in association with Royal College of Music