TOUCHED by the tragic story of Alex Curtis, who died at school as a result of an asthma attack, Julian Trevelyan will be giving a recital in support of the Memorial Trust in his name next week.

The recital is at 7.30pm on Wednesday, July 11, in St Saviour’s Church in Sandpit Lane, St Albans.

It will be an opportunity to hear some celebrated pieces from the piano repertoire played by the talented young teenager at the beginning of his musical career.

During the recital, Peter Curtis, the father of the late Alex Curtis, will make an appeal for funds for the Memorial Trust, set up to promote awareness of asthma in children, and there will be a collection at the end of the concert.

The programme will include Beethoven sonata Op. 109, one of the three great sonatas written towards the end of the composer’s life. Thirteen-year old Julian has a particular love of the Beethoven sonatas and this will be the eighth sonata, from the cycle of 32, that he has performed in public.

He will also be playing Schubert’s second set of impromptus, which as a group are almost a sonata in themselves.

He will go on to play Schumann’s Forest Scenes – short vignettes evoking the flowers, birds and hunters – and that will be followed by the third of Chopin’s scherzi.

Julian’s recitals have been warmly praised and greeted with standing ovations. He has given solo piano recitals in the St Albans Festival for the past three years and in Harpenden, Suffolk, Stamford, Waltham Abbey and Kings Lynn.

In May 2011, he was one of a select band of young pianists invited to participate in the Lang Lang Inspires event at the South Bank. He has held a piano scholarship from Awards for Young Musicians for the last five years, and was awarded the Sheila Mossman prize by ABRSM for gaining the highest marks nationally in his Grade 8 exam.