Myra Hess Festival
Lunchtime Concert 2025 - Jessica Duchen and Lara Melda
Free
Spaces are limited and allocated on a first-come, first-served basis.
Please arrive in good time access the building and to find the location of the performance in Room 36.
About
Jessica Duchen, author of 'Myra Hess – National Treasure', joins forces with the award-winning pianist Lara Melda to tell the inspiring story of Myra Hess and her wartime National Gallery Concerts in words and music. Repertoire includes works by Beethoven, Schumann and Chopin, along with Myra Hess’s transcription of Bach’s ‘Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring’.
Jessica Duchen
Jessica Duchen is a music critic, author and librettist. Her latest book, 'Myra Hess – National Treasure', was published in 2025 (Kahn & Averill) and praised as ‘magnificent’ by The Spectator. She has written for The Times and Sunday Times, the I News and BBC Music Magazine and her operatic work includes 'Silver Birch' and 'Dalia' with the composer Roxanna Panufnik for Garsington Opera. Earlier books include biographies of Erich Wolfgang Korngold and Gabriel Fauré, plus seven novels on music-related topics. She has created and performed numerous narrated concerts which have featured at Wigmore Hall, Kings Place and festivals in Britain, France and Australia.
Lara Melda
Lara Melda won BBC Young Musician in 2010 with a performance of Saint-Saëns' Piano Concerto No. 2. Since then, she has appeared with leading orchestras including the BBC National Orchestra of Wales, Britten Sinfonia, Royal Northern Sinfonia, Aurora Orchestra, and the National Youth Orchestra of New Zealand, performing concertos by Mozart, Beethoven, Rachmaninov, Chopin, Grieg, and Britten. She made her BBC Proms debut at the Royal Albert Hall and has given recitals at major venues including Wigmore Hall (with multiple sold-out performances), Cadogan Hall, Laeiszhalle Hamburg, and festivals in Gstaad and Mecklenburg-Vorpommern.
Myra Hess and the National Gallery
During the Second World War, many of London's music halls, theatres, galleries and museums closed.
With the National Gallery empty of its paintings, the celebrated pianist Myra Hess had the revolutionary idea of using the Gallery as a venue for concerts to help raise morale and make classical music available to all.
From October 1939, Hess and her friends from the world of classical music performed concerts Monday to Friday, every week of the year, and even during the Blitz. They were a huge success with queues forming in Trafalgar Square.
We now hold an annual concert in commemoration of Hess.