Roxanne de Bastion – The Piano Player of Budapest at Royal Albert Hall

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2. Roxanne de Bastion – The Piano Player of Budapest

Join us for this very special book and album launch, at which singer-songwriter Roxanne de Bastion will discuss how she uncovered her family’s history, as well as give an exclusive live performance of Stephen de Bastion’s work, together with Xenia Pestova Bennett, Simon Tong and special guests.

When her father died, Roxanne inherited a piano she knew had been in her family for over a hundred years. But it was only when she found a cassette recording of her grandfather, Stephen, playing one of his compositions that the true and almost unbelievable history of the piano, this man and her family began to unravel. By piecing together his cassette recordings, unpublished memoirs, letters and documents, Roxanne sings out her grandfather's extraordinary story of music and hope and how he survived the horrors of the Holocaust in Hungary.

To accompany this incredible publication, Roxanne de Bastion and producer/guitarist Simon Tong (The Verve/Damon Albarn) have lovingly created an album of Stephen’s music by restoring, re-recording and re-imagining her grandfather’s body of work. The album features pianist Xenia Pestova Bennett (performing Stephen’s compositions on his original piano), as well as string arrangements from world class orchestrator Sally Herbert and Mercury Award-nominated singer songwriter Ed Harcourt.

Roxanne de Bastion is a singer-songwriter and artist advocate. She has released two critically acclaimed albums that have been championed by the likes of Iggy Pop and Steve Lamacq.

Her music has garnered praise in the Observer, NME, Record Collector and Rolling Stone Germany, and her pioneering DIY artistry and activism have been featured in the Metro, Huffington Post, LBC and Sky News.

Roxanne has toured opening for Katie Melua, Howard Jones, Lambchop and Martha Wainwright, and has performed at Latitude, Glastonbury and Cambridge Folk Festival.

In 2018, she self-published her tour diaries Tales from the Rails and in 2021, she was the first artist to embark on a virtual UK tour when the pandemic hit.

Roxanne sits on the board of the Featured Artist Coalition (alongside artists such as Dave Rowntree of Blur and Imogen Heap) and the PPL Performer Board, where she represents artists' rights. She is the founder of the independent artist conference FM2U (From Me to You).

Roxanne has held talks at Brunel University, Reeperbahn Festival and re:publica on topics such as 'Designing your Own Future' and 'Female is not a Genre', and has been invited to speak on panel discussions at international music industry conferences such as The Great Escape, Folk Alliance and the English Folk Expo. Roxanne also hosts a radio show on North London's Boogaloo Radio.

The Piano Player of Budapest is her first book.