CLASSICAL concerts rarely come as varied as Joanna MacGregor’s with the RLPO on Thursday.

Rightly entitled Mixing it Up, it opens with a Bach and Dowland sandwich, followed by music from Argentina and the American Deep South.

The diversity is typical of MacGregor, whose career covers an eclectic mix of influences.

Her solo recordings range from Scarlatti to jazz, while her orchestral projects have taken her all over the world.

The pianist’s musical beginnings were relatively conventional, however. She studied the subject at Cambridge University and completed a Masters with the Royal Academy of Music.

This grounding is what led her to Bach, she says, and the two Clavier Concertos in this week’s concert.

“The little F Minor is very elegant and light, and then the big D Minor is very driven and full of incredible rhythm,” she enthuses.

Austrian composer Gustav Mahler once said: “In Bach, all the seeds of music are found.”

The link between the show’s first half and Astor Piazzolla’s Three Tan gos, which open the second, are the descending bass lines, says MacGregor.

The pieces are Michelangelo 70, which references the name of a Buenos Aires cafe where the composer’s quintet performed in the 70s; Milonga del ángel, composed for a play in which an angel walks among the people of a down-at-heel Argentinian suburb; and Libertango, which formed the basis of Grace Jones’s song, I’ve Seen that Face Before.

Piazzolla’s re-invention of the tango by interweaving modern jazz, classical and folkloric Latin music so angered purists that he regularly received death threats.

MacGregor has arranged the pieces for piano and string quartet, while Dowland’s Lute Songs are arranged for piano, saxophone and strings.

“I enjoy string orchestras very much,” she says.

“I like the depth of sound, the richness they have and also the way they can remind you of a much earlier time.