Helen Glaisher Hernández

“It gives me great pleasure to join the Festelõn team. Although my current focus is classical music, I studied a lot of Hispanic theatre as part of my first degree in French and Spanish, so it’s lovely to go back to my roots, and to bring my experience in music promotion to the service of this fabulous Festival.”

British-Hispanic pianist, Helen Glaisher-Hernández, is part of a new generation of Latinx practitioners elucidating the cultural diversity of classical music.

Following degrees in Spanish and French at the University of Cambridge, including a year abroad studying Piano at the Conservatorio Nacional Superior in Buenos Aires, Argentina, and an MMus in Piano at Trinity College of Music in London, Helen Glaisher-Hernández now combines her two great loves – music and hispanicity – as a concert pianist, event producer, educator and Ibe/rican specialist committed to the decolonisation of music programming and performance.

Helen’s playing is noted as much for its passion as for its sensitivity and cultural authenticity, and has been praised by critics as ‘magical’ (BBC Radio 3’s In Tune), ‘so beautiful’ (BBC Radio 4’s Woman’s Hour); ‘a compelling mestizaje of classical refinement and Latin feel’, and ‘satisfyingly understated’ (Music & Vision). She was characterised by Telecinco as ‘a magnificent musician’.

With a special passion for chamber music and vocal accompaniment, Helen has collaborated with many leading artists in her field, including Dominic Miller (Sting), Lizzie Ball, Luis Gomes, Ian Anderson, Vanessa Lucas-Smith, Omar Puente, Coro Cervantes, Bárbara Llanes, Clara Rodríguez, José Menor and Nina Corti, and she has also shared a platform with Morgan Szymanski, Fábio Zanon and Marcelo Bratke. Helen has performed internationally, as well as live on BBC Radio 3 and BBC Radio 4, and across London’s major venues, including sell-out appearances at Southbank Centre’s Purcell Room at Queen Elizabeth Hall, Barbican’s Milton Court Concert Hall, St John’s Smith Square, St Martin-in-the-Fields, St James’s Piccadilly, Fairfield Halls, The National Gallery and La Linea Festival.

Helen also works as Artistic Director of ILAMS and Echoes Festival in the promotion of Iberican classical music in the UK and in this role she has curated events at The Leeds Opera Festival, SOAS, Trinity College of Music, Canning House, Instituto Cervantes, The In & Out Club, and the Wallace Collection, amongst others.