Julian Chan performs the rarely played Java Suite at Wigmore Hall on June 12 [www.julianchanpiano.com]

IF you’ve ever heard the hypnotic soundworld of a Javanese gamelan orchestra (they used to keep a set of instruments at the Southbank Centre for the curious to try) you’ll know why it made an impression on Western composers like Debussy who absorbed it into their own work. But not many of these composers actually ventured to Java to experience it on home ground.

An exception was Leopold Godowsky, the Lithuanian/ American keyboard virtuoso who travelled out to Indonesia in the 1920s, was smitten by what he called the “perfume of sound” he encountered, and wrote a 50-minute titan of a piece for solo piano that attempted to capture its intoxicating power. Entitled Java Suite, it has a legendary status in keyboard circles, much talked-about though rarely played. But it gets an outing at a lunchtime Wigmore Hall concert on June 12, courtesy of the young Malaysian pianist Julian Chan.

That he’s chosen this monument to East/West interaction for his Wigmore debut has significance. It speaks in some ways of his own life, born in SE Asia, coming as a child to study at the specialist music school in Wells, then on to the Academy where he’s just acquired a Fellowship. He’s touring the piece – which conjures up images of Asian puppetry, court rituals, and the great Buddhist temple at Borobudur – to other UK venues, like the Chichester Festival later this month. A must-hear. wigmore-hall.org.uk

• Other pianists playing London include that other Asian star you might have heard of, Yuja Wang, appearing June 7 at the Royal Festival Hall in a programme that, as I write, hasn’t been announced. But it hardly matters: whatever she plays, you’ll want to be there. And be dazzled. southbankcentre.co.uk

You might also be dazzled by the emerging virtuoso Drew Steanson playing Liszt and Amy Beach (the first American female composer of distinction) at St Martin-in-the-Fields, lunchtime June 7. stmartin-in-the-fields.org

And of serious interest is the return to London of Craig Sheppard, the American pianist who once lived here, in Hampstead, and was famous back in the 1980s before disappearing back to the US to teach. He plays Chopin at Westminster Cathedral Hall, June 9. chopin-society.org.uk

• Operatically, St John’s Smith Square has a semi-staging of Puccini’s Madam Butterfly June 7-8, done with a largely Japanese cast. sjss.org.uk . And the summer season at Holland Park continues with the same composer’s Tosca (there’s a lot of him about, marking this year’s centenary of his death) from June 7 to 22. operahollandpark.com

• Given the weather you could be forgiven for not noticing it’s summer, but proof comes with the annual Summer Music in City Churches season – which this year seems to be happening in just the one church: St Giles, Cripplegate, the fine medieval building marooned in the bleakness of the Barbican development.

The 2024 theme is Shakespearian. And the concerts, which run June 6-15, are programmed accordingly, starting today, Thursday, with Finzi’s incidental music for Love’s Labours Lost, and ending on June 15 with the City of London Choir taking on board a new conductor: Daniel Hyde, who you’ll have seen at Christmas on TV because he also runs the choir at King’s Cambridge. Full details at: summermusiccitychurches.com