It is May 9th, 1965. Concert pianist maestro Vladamir Horowitz makes his long-awaited return to Carnegie Hall following his mental breakdown triggered by Soviet conversion therapy to cure his homosexuality and his political marriage to the daughter of the great Italian conductor Toscanini. Suffering from crippling stage fright and with television cameras rolling, he must be pushed on stage – only to be unexpectedly visited by an apparition of his idol Ludwig van Beethoven. The unhappy lives of both performer and composer intersect as the audience watch on – is he a figment of his creative imagination? Or a spirit from another world? Or something even more profound?

Maestro is an experimental ‘concert-play’ and collaboration between award-winning pianist Matthew Shiel and acclaimed novelist Alastair Sim. Featuring Beethoven’s most iconic piano pieces including Moonlight Sonata, Für Elise and Liszt’s virtuoso transcription of Symphony No. 5, Maestro pushes back the boundaries of the fourth wall of both theatre and concert hall.