AN ARTS student at Oxford Brookes University is planning to play the piano non-stop for 24 hours to raise money for his degree show.

Tim Croston, who lives in Iffley Road, will sit down at the grand piano in Oxford Brookes’ Richard Hamilton Building at 8pm tonight and play everything from Chopin to Shostakovich, and his own compositions, until 8pm tomorrow.

Mr Croston said: “The idea is to keep playing all the time without silence.

“If I need a toilet break I am going to have to put something like a brick on the pedals to keep the noise going.

“I might have to write a piece specifically for it.”

The 28-year-old MA arts student, who describes himself as a ‘sonic artist’, has been preparing for the event with training including hand yoga and back strengthening exercises. But so far he has so far only played for three and a half hours in one go.

Every year, students on the MA in interdisciplinary arts course, which involves art music and sculpture, have to raise funds to stage their own degree festival, which takes place from October 2-5, in various locations around Oxford. The 14 artists and musicians taking part, need to raise between £4,000 and £10,000 between them, but Mr Croston has not set himself a specific target.

He is drawing up a repertoire for the event, but said he would need to repeat some of the music to fill up the time.

He added: “There are some piano pieces that last an incredible amount of time, like Vexations by Erik Satie which is the same page played over and over again. A group of 12 pianists played it for 18 hours in 1963, so I might play that for an hour or two.”

He said he had toyed with the idea of performing John Cage’s 4’33” – where the performer sits in silence for exactly four minutes and 33 seconds – but said it could be considered a “cop-out”.

He said: “I will take requests up to a point and I know a few popular ones like As Time Goes By, which I think has a nice ring to it considering I will be doing it for 24 hours.”

Mr Croston will have to go some way to beat the world record.

The longest keyboard playing marathon stands at 101 hours and seven minutes. It was set by Charles Brunner at Crowne Plaza Hotel, in Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago, from December 9 to 13, 2008.

Members of the public will be able to watch the first and last hour of Mr Croston’s marathon.

For more information, to sponsor him or to follow the marathon visit timcroston.co.uk/24