Australia-based Russian piano maestro Konstantin Shamray has played in venues throughout the world since he took out the 2008 Sydney International Piano Competition with a unique double, winning the jurors’ and audience prizes.

Few could have been more cosy and intimate than the Hayes St Studio, just a few doors away from Neutral Bay ferry wharf in Sydney.

Music at Hayes St Studio. Photo supplied

Like a large, tastefully decorated and furnished living room, it holds no more than 30 people, some of them almost within touching distance of the soloist sitting at the Yamaha grand. Tapes of Django Rheinhardt induced a pleasant Sunday afternoon vibe before the concert, part of a series co-directed by Sydney flutist Rosie Gallagher and US born pianist Lee Dionne.

Nevertheless, Shamray confessed to being nervous as the program included some pieces he’d never played in public before, although he was as always immaculately prepared, performing most of them from memory.

First off was Sergei Rachmaninov’s piano arrangement of JS Bach’s Violin Partita No. 3, a work had not heard before, and while the right hand was true to the original for the most part the left was...