Monumental Piano Trios
1. | Introduction | 00:00:46 |
2. | Mendelssohn Hensel: Trio in D minor for Piano, Violin, and Cello, Op. 11 | 00:28:39 |
3. | Ravel: Trio in A minor for Piano, Violin, and Cello | 00:29:04 |
4. | Closing | 00:00:30 |
The piano trio gained popularity amongst composers in the 18th century with Haydn composing around 40 of them and composers like Mozart and Beethoven following suit as the instrumentation allowed perfect flexibility for salon performances. Fanny Hensel (née Mendelssohn)’s Piano Trio premiered in 1847 at one of her Sunday salons to celebrate her sister, Rebecka’s birthday. Though sharing a key with her brother Felix’s earlier piano trio, Hensel’s trio uses a mostly chromatic melody alluding to her sister’s vocal talent as well as her fondness for the works of Frédéric Chopin. By the time Maurice Ravel composed his Trio in A minor, he had established a successful career and become a well-known public figure. This trio has come to be a classic of the literature and showcases an imagination and complexity unique to Ravel and this trio.
PROGRAM
Fanny Mendelssohn Hensel (1805–1847) |
Trio in D minor for Piano, Violin, and Cello, Op. 11 (1847) Michael Stephen Brown, piano; James Thompson, violin; Paul Watkins, cello |
Maurice Ravel (1875–1912) |
Trio in A minor for Piano, Violin, and Cello (1914) Michael Stephen Brown, piano; Erin Keefe, violin; Mihai Marica, cello |
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Michael Stephen Brown
James Thompson
Paul Watkins
Erin Keefe
Mihai Marica
Michael Stephen Brown has been described as “one of the leading figures in the current renaissance of performer-composers” (New York Times). Winner of a 2018 Emerging Artist Award from Lincoln Center and a 2015 Avery Fisher Career Grant, he is an artist of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center and an alum of CMS’s Bowers Program. He makes regular appearances with orchestras such as the National Philharmonic and the Seattle, Phoenix, North Carolina, and Albany symphonies, and recently has made European recital debuts at the Beethoven-Haus Bonn and the Chopin Museum in Mallorca. He has received commissions from many organizations and some of today’s leading artists, and recently toured his own Piano Concerto around the US and Poland with several orchestras. He performs regularly with his longtime duo partner, cellist Nicholas Canellakis, and has appeared at festivals worldwide. A prolific recording artist, he has three albums in the works, including Mendelssohn+, featuring world premieres of music by one of Mendelssohn’s muses, Delphine von Schauroth. He was the composer- and artist-in-residence at the New Haven Symphony, and winner of the Concert Artists Guild and Copland House Awards. He holds degrees in piano and composition from the Juilliard School, where he studied with Jerome Lowenthal, Robert McDonald, and Samuel Adler. Additional mentors include András Schiff and Richard Goode. An Artist Ambassador for Creatives Care, Brown lives in New York City with his two 19th-century Steinway D pianos, Octavia and Daria.
Violinist James Thompson enjoys a multifaceted career as a chamber musician, soloist, educator, and lecturer. He is currently on faculty at Music@Menlo and has been a member of CMS’s Bowers Program since 2021. He has performed for prestigious chamber music organizations across the country, including the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, Music@Menlo, the Four Arts Society, Parlance Chamber Concerts, the Perlman Music Program, and the Taos School of Music. Solo engagements include appearances with the Cleveland Orchestra, the Cleveland Institute of Music Orchestra, the Cleveland Pops Orchestra, and the Blue Water Chamber Orchestra. He was invited to perform in Budapest as part of the First Bartók World Competition and in Sendai for the Seventh Sendai International Violin Competition. Recently, his abilities as a presenter have earned him invitations to speak at a variety of established concert series. His multimedia live interview with the Kalichstein-Laredo-Robinson Trio, hosted by CMS, was a highlight of his 2021–22 season. Alongside his career on stage, he is forming a strong reputation as a private instructor and chamber music coach, and has recently served as a teaching fellow at both the Encore Chamber Music Festival and the Western Reserve Chamber Music Festival. Thompson holds bachelor’s, master’s, and artist diploma degrees from the Cleveland Institute of Music; his primary teachers include Jaime Laredo, William Preucil, and Paul Kantor.
Acclaimed for his inspirational performances and eloquent musicianship, Paul Watkins enjoys a remarkably varied and distinguished career as soloist, chamber musician, and conductor. He is the Artistic Director of the Great Lakes Chamber Music Festival, and in 2019 he was appointed Professor of Cello at the Yale School of Music. He has performed as concerto soloist with prestigious orchestras throughout the world under eminent conductors including Bernard Haitink, Paavo Berglund, Leonard Slatkin, Sakari Oramo, Gianandrea Noseda, Sir Mark Elder, Sir Andrew Davis, Sir Charles Mackerras, Andris Nelsons, Edo de Waart, Hannu Lintu and Vasily Petrenko. A dedicated chamber musician, Paul was a member of the Nash Ensemble from 1997 until 2013, when he joined the Emerson String Quartet. With the Quartet he has travelled extensively, performing at major international festivals including Tanglewood, Aspen, Ravinia, Edinburgh, Berlin, and Evian, and has collaborated with artists such as Emanuel Ax, Yefim Bronfman, Evgeny Kissin, Renée Fleming, and Barbara Hannigan. He is a regular guest artist of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center.
He took first prize in the 2002 Leeds Conducting Competition, and has held the positions of Music Director of the English Chamber Orchestra and Principal Guest Conductor of the Ulster Orchestra. In recent seasons he made his conducting debuts with the Minnesota Orchestra, Detroit Symphony, and Omaha Symphony. His extensive discography as a cellist includes more than 70 recordings, including 18 solo albums for Chandos. His first recording as a conductor, of the Britten and Berg violin concertos with Daniel Hope, received a Grammy nomination.
Paul’s future plans include solo performances and recordings with, among others, Alessio Bax, Anthony Marwood, Lawrence Power, Leila Josefowicz, Edward Gardner, and Sir Andrew Davis. He is also in demand as a visiting teacher and has residencies this season at the Curtis Institute of Music and the Butler School of Music at the University of Texas at Austin.
American violinist Erin Keefe is the Concertmaster of the Minnesota Orchestra and joined the violin faculty of the Curtis Institute of Music in the fall of 2022. Winner of an Avery Fisher Career Grant, the Pro Musicis International Award as well as numerous international competitions, she has appeared as soloist in recent seasons with the Minnesota Orchestra, New Mexico Symphony, New York City Ballet Orchestra, Korean Symphony Orchestra, Amadeus Chamber Orchestra, Turku Philharmonic, Sendai Philharmonic and the Gottingen Symphony and has given recitals throughout the United States, Austria, Italy, Germany, Korea, Poland, Finland, Japan and Denmark.
An avid chamber musician, she has been a frequent artist with CMS since 2005 and has been featured on Live from Lincoln Center. She is a member of Accordo, a string ensemble composed of present and former principal string players of the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra and Minnesota Orchestra and has performed frequently with the Brooklyn and Boston Chamber Music Societies.
Ms. Keefe has collaborated with many leading artists including the Emerson String Quartet, Edgar Meyer, Gary Hoffman, David Finckel, Wu Han, Richard Goode, Augustin Hadelich, James Ehnes, Roberto and Andrés Díaz, Menahem Pressler, Gary Graffman, and Leon Fleisher. Her festival appearances have included the Marlboro Music Festival, Music@Menlo, La Jolla Summerfest, Mainly Mozart, Music Academy of the West, Music from Angel Fire, Ravinia and the Seattle, OK Mozart, Mimir, Bravo! Vail Valley, Colorado College, Skaneateles, Salt Bay, Music in the Vineyards, and Bridgehampton Chamber Music Festivals.
As a guest concertmaster, Ms. Keefe has appeared in recent seasons with the New York Philharmonic, Pittsburgh Symphony, Seoul Philharmonic and the Sao Paulo Symphony Orchestra.
Ms. Keefe earned a master’s degree from the Juilliard School and a bachelor’s degree from the Curtis Institute of Music. Her teachers included Ronald Copes, Ida Kavafian, Arnold Steinhardt, Philip Setzer, Philipp Naegele, Brian Lewis, and Teri Einfeldt. She performs on a Nicolò Gagliano violin from 1732.
Romanian-born cellist Mihai Marica is a first-prize winner of the Dr. Luis Sigall International Competition in Viña del Mar, Chile, as well as the Irving M. Klein International Competition, and is a recipient of Charlotte White’s Salon de Virtuosi Fellowship Grant. He has performed with orchestras such as the Symphony Orchestra of Chile, Xalapa Symphony in Mexico, the Hermitage State Orchestra of St. Petersburg in Russia, the Jardins Musicaux Festival Orchestra in Switzerland, the Louisville Orchestra, and the Santa Cruz Symphony in the US. He has also appeared in recital performances in Austria, Hungary, Germany, Spain, Holland, South Korea, Japan, Chile, the United States, and Canada. A dedicated chamber musician, he has performed at the Chamber Music Northwest, Norfolk, and Aspen music festivals where he has collaborated with such artists as Ani Kavafian, Ida Kavafian, David Shifrin, André Watts, and Edgar Meyer. He is a founding member of the award-winning Amphion String Quartet. A recent collaboration with dancer Lil Buck brought forth new pieces for solo cello written by Yevgeniy Sharlat and Patrick Castillo. He recently joined the acclaimed Apollo Trio. Marica studied with Gabriela Todor in his native Romania and with Aldo Parisot at the Yale School of Music, where he was awarded master's and artist diploma degrees. He is an alum of CMS's Bowers Program.