‘I DON’T normally celebrate my birthday – I’m not sure I really wanted to celebrate turning 50,” laughs Kathryn Stott.

The concert pianist marks the milestone early next month, and has found herself pulling out all the stops to make sure it goes with a bang.

It’s not usually the done thing to arrange your own do, but Kathryn wanted to make sure she could bring together a line-up of world-class musicians for a concert that would make for a night to remember – and what better excuse than a big birthday?

“Either way, I thought why not gather all my friends around me, which is something that is always difficult to do.

“People are always in different parts of the country and all over the world – this was the only way to bring people together and that’s why a concert was my initial thought.

“It will be a chance to have a look at what I’ve been doing, where I’m up to and what has happened before, with a view to going forward.”

That concert has now become one of the winter highlights of Capital of Culture year. Kathryn Stott and Friends takes over the Philharmonic Hall next Thursday, where she will play alongside internationally acclaimed cellist Yo-Yo Ma, former Young Musician of the Year Natalie Clein, and more than 20 other accompanists.

And the Manchester-based star of the show didn’t just pick any old venue for the event.

“I suddenly realised with this that I have been 30 years in the profession,” she says.

“I’d started off in the hall in Liverpool and the orchestra there were very generous to me when I started out, so I have a big appreciation for it.

“The first orchestra to give me a professional performance was the Phil. I was very green back then, but they invited me back regularly and helped me across that original journey. I had very nerve-wracking times, but I’m very fond of looking back.

“I still regularly go and play, so it’s been an ongoing relationship for 30 years. I thought the Phil would be a wonderful place to hold this concert.”

Kathryn was “thrust in the limelight almost overnight” when she won the Leeds International Piano Competition in 1978, while still a student.

In the years since, she has relentlessly toured the globe as a soloist, has become professor at the Royal Academy of Music in London, as well as teaching at Chetham’s School of Music in Manchester; has been the artistic director of several one-off music festivals and has an enviable recording output (her latest CD, Dance, has also been released to celebrate her 50th birthday).

It soon becomes clear she’s not one for doing something by halves.

Going back to the concert, she says there will be an orchestra playing, but insists there will also be a chamber feel to some of the pieces.

“Still, there’ll be eight pianos on stage,” she ponders.