Alsion Farr is a young pianist with a glittering career ahead of her. At her Festival recital, she showed tremendous technique and a flair for the difficult and the different.

A graduate of the Wells Cathedral School and Royal Academy of Music and the winner of several prizes and awards, Ms Farr has studied under such piano luminaries as Joanna McGregor, Imogen Cooper and Christina Ortiz.

She opened her recital with a sonata by Haydn, beautifully elegant and formal but with a large dash of drama.

A flair for the dramatic seems to be a large part of Farr's technique and her talent. From the delights of Haydn she moved on to the 21st Century with part of a major piano piece by French Catholic mystic Messiaen.

His Vingt Regard comprises 20 pieces of music and she chose no 15, The Kiss Of The Christ Child.

It is a frighteningly difficult piece where timing and the pauses between notes make or break it. Farr was triumphant in a haunting reading of great colour and sheer joy.

She ended her session with Robert Schumann's Carnival, a series of 22 vignettes, light and dark, of the composer's favourite characters from clowns to characters in fiction and two autobiographical pieces showing his introspective and extrovert sides.