Keyboard Warriors

Keyboard Warriors is a lively afternoon of keynote insight and live performance celebrating innovation and individuality in classical music. Featuring Oli Rose of the Lang Lang Foundation, plus performances from Rebeca Omordia, Yshani Perinpanayagam and Okiem with strings, the session offers an inspiring snapshot of contemporary classical talent, creativity and representation through the Classically Black lens.

Keyboard Warriors brings together keynote insight and live performance in a vibrant afternoon session celebrating individuality, artistry and innovation in classical music. As part of the wider Classically Black programme, the event offers audiences the chance to experience a rich mix of conversation and performance that reflects the diversity, imagination and momentum shaping the genre today.

The session opens with a keynote by Oli Rose of the Lang Lang Foundation, offering thought-provoking insights into creativity, opportunity, and the role of music in inspiring the next generation. This is followed by three twenty-minute performance sets from Rebeca Omordia, Yshani Perinpanayagam and Okiem with strings, each bringing a distinctive artistic voice and musical perspective.

Together, these performances showcase the breadth of contemporary classical music, from bold interpretation and virtuosic skill to genre-expanding approaches that challenge expectations and open new possibilities. The programme highlights artists who are not only exceptional performers but who are also helping to shape the future of classical music.

Energetic, inspiring and full of variety, Keyboard Warriors continues the wider Classically Black conversation around representation, visibility and progression, offering an engaging and memorable event for audiences curious about where classical music is now and where it is going next.

This event will last approximately 90 minutes, with no interval. 

About Black Lives in Music

Talent is distributed evenly, opportunities are not! Black Lives in Music addresses the current inequality of opportunity for Black, Asian and Ethnically Diverse people aspiring to be artists or professionals in the Jazz and Classical music industry. Black Lives in Music believes in real equality for Black, Asian and Ethnically Diverse people to learn musical instruments at the grassroots level and to allow them to pursue and realise their musical ambitions.

Black Lives in Music is made up of over 100 partners who are all working towards the same goal: to dismantle structural racism in our industry. We aim to support the industry in providing better professional opportunities. We also want to achieve equality for Black, Asian and Ethnically Diverse professionals at all levels and in all areas of the UK Jazz and Classical industry. Representation matters; we need to take action to