Join the Department of Music in celebrating one of its illustrious female alumnae, contemporary concert pianist Sarah Nicolls.

Sarah Nicolls won the prestigious Women in Innovation Award from Innovate UK, the UK’s innovation agency. King’s College London, where Sarah gained her undergraduate degree in Music, will unveil a purple plaque related to the award in her honour on 4 December. The event will be followed by a short concert by Sarah.

Sarah is developing a lightweight vertical grand piano. In the last years, she has been working with engineers to explore the development of a new and innovative internal structure to solve the engineering challenge of holding 20 tonnes of piano string tension in tune using new materials and structural engineering capabilities. The piano’s cast iron string frame was patented in 1825, so Sarah is seeking to overturn 200 years of history.

Sarah originally changed the shape of the piano to make playing ‘inside’ the piano- directly on the strings – easier to reach and more interesting for the audience to see. ‘Inside piano’ is a commonly used technique for contemporary composers and improvisors and was first scored for in 1916. Sarah began building prototypes in 2008 and currently performs on her re-made Erard, originally built in 1910 and remade into a vertical grand in 2014 by Pierre Malbos. In 2023, Sarah’s previous company built a carbon fibre prototype and now she is working on new designs.

Purple plaques are being displayed at institutions across the country to recognise the achievements of the winners of the prestigious Innovate UK Women in Innovation Award. The Award consisted of £50,000 grant funding and one-to-one mentoring to scale up their businesses and bring their pioneering innovations to market.

The purple plaque is Innovate UK’s twist on the blue plaques that commemorate influential and pioneering historic figures. Currently, just 15% of blue plaques in London celebrate the achievements of women, with a similar story throughout the rest of the UK. This highlights a national issue of the underrepresentation of women in the media, the workplace and in the education system, resulting in a lack of relatable role models for children and young people.

Innovate UK hopes the plaque will inspire students at King’s College, London to follow in Sarah’s footsteps.