pianist Bernard Roberts will be performing with the English Symphony Orchestra as part of a series of performances to mark its coming of age.

Mr Roberts will be playing Brahms' Piano Concerto No 2 with the ESO next Friday (November 23), at The Forum, at the Malvern Theatres.

The concert, which also contains the composer's Hungarian Dance No 1 and Symphony No 3 in F (Op 90), is one of a series of performances of the Brahms Cycle to mark the ESO's 21st anniversary year.

"I feel the orchestra and I are now of an age when we can do Brahms justice," said artistic director William Boughton.

"He is so much more thematically complex than his predecessors, it takes a degree of maturity to be able to understand how to interpret his work, and only now do I feel that the orchestra and I are ready to take it on. So there are benefits to getting older!"

Pianist Bernard Roberts, whom Mr Boughton describes as "the doyenne of British piano playing," has performed at all the major festivals in this country, and his international career has taken him to the Far East, Southern Africa, America and Europe.

Tickets for the concert are priced £6-£22 from 01684 892277.