Karolina, listening from the good seats

Behind the glass

Wigmore Hall holds a little over five hundred people, and Karolina knows which rows give the piano its truest sound. That single fact explains her rather well. In plain figures: 174 cm and slim. The black hair reaches past her shoulder blades without a single curl, and the brown eyes miss very little. Her style is spare: a black dress with a clean neckline, no logos, one silver ring. In a busy lobby she is the still point.

Poised and discreet, certainly, but the wit is what people mention afterwards. It is dry, fast and usually delivered while she looks at something else. She is in her late twenties and her English is exact, as though every sentence has been proofread before it leaves her. She plays the piano daily, badly by her own standards and beautifully by anyone else's, loves opera without apology, and walks London looking up at cornices rather than down at a map.

A recital at Wigmore Hall, the Edwardian concert room on Wigmore Street a few minutes behind the department stores, is her ideal W1 evening. Before it, a light supper nearby. After it, a walk up Portland Place so she can show you the curve of All Souls against the dark sky and explain why Nash drew it that way. She will not say a word during the music. She will say a great deal once it ends.

Covent Garden is home, so anywhere in W1 is a short ride north. Weeknights are easiest, and concert evenings need a few days so the seats can be secured. Name the date through booking and she will check the programme herself.