CD REVIEWS Just In.....
"About Last Night"
CD Review : Trio Solisti "Pictures at an Exhibition"
"...an ingenious arrangement of Mussorgsky's masterpiece by the
members of the trio...and a flawless performance of Ravel's luscious
A Minor Piano Trio by the group that to my mind has now succeeded
the Beaux Arts Trio as the outstanding chamber-music ensemble
of its kind."
-Terry Teachout Critic, The Wall Street Journal Nov. 28, 2007

GRAMAPHONE MAGAZINE Reviews Trio Solisti's "PICTURES" cd
"Trio Solisti's arrangement skillfully recasts Mussorgsky's musical gallery . . . fine characterful performances . . . well worth hearing. Tuileries is graceful
and witty, with Maria Bachmann’s clever solo violin evoking a nice fin de siècle Parisian flavour... a lively market at Limoges...an atmospheric Catacombs, with evocative piano work by Klibonoff...rounded off with a resounding
Great Gate of Kiev.”
-GRAMAPHONE Magazine Feb. 2008

FANFARE MAGAZINE Reviews Trio Solisti's "Pictures" cd
“The performance (Mussorgsky) is impressive, especially the multi-hued work from the string-players."
On the RAVEL Trio:
" ...surging sensuality... dramatic contrasts...the second movement is astonishing in its sparkling clarity...the hints of jazz in the second movement are wittily exploited here, too...in all four movements the ensemble is superb... an ardent performance and a welcome addition to the catalog, worthy to stand among the best recordings of the work."
-FANFARE MAGAZINE March 2008

TEMPEST FANTASY CD on NAXOS
"...beautifully crafted...a range of stylistic influences, showing off a nearly prismatic sense for timbral color, a constructed with a sure sense for architectural cohesiveness. This is intensely focused and lyrically expressed playing, with obviously deep affection for the music."
-FANFARE MAGAZINE (July/Aug 2007)

May 2007
BBC Music Magazine selects "THE RED VIOLIN" cd as
"NORTH AMERICAN CD of the MONTH" for May 2007
Maria Bachmann, violin & Jon Klibonoff, piano
on Endeavour Classics
"This programme demands interpretive and dynamic flexibility of exceptional sensitivity and Maria Bachmann proves more than equal to the task with a range of tonal shadings and exquisite bow- work that ensures these coruscating scores tingle with life and energy...thrilling abandon that never compromises absolute technical command."
-BBC Music Magazine ***** Performance ***** Sound

• NPR Music:
CLASSICAL GOLD: WGBH Top Ten CDs of 2007
Dec. 18, 2007
Maria Bachmann: Red Violin
"Maria Bachmann has always been interested in that elusive balance between intellectually challenging, well-crafted compositions and music of popular appeal.
This collaboration with Jon Klibonoff strikes that balance perfectly, with electric performances of a mostly American program that ranges from the familiar, like pieces from Gershwin's Porgy and Bess, to addictive contemporary music by Paul Moravec and John Corigliano."
to read the full story, go to:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=17259778

Trio Solisti's CD Release Concert in New York :
2/14/08
PICTURES AT AN EXHIBITION (cd released 10/07)
MERKIN HALL, New York, NY Feb. 14, 2008 at 8PM
Ravel Trio in A minor
Piazzolla Four Seasons
Mussorgsky Pictures at an Exhibition for Piano Trio
(arr. Trio Solisti)
For tickets call Merkin Box office: 212-501-3330


Trio Solisti's Upcoming CDs:

June 1, 2008- LENNON & MORAVEC Trios on Bridge
John Anthony Lennon's Sirens and Paul Moravec's evocative Passacaglia (2005) written for Trio Solisti. This is part of a multi-CD recording project for The American Academy in Rome.

Fall 2008- CAFE MUSIC
Trio Solisti's exciting performances of ever popular works including Paul Schoenfield's Cafe Music, Astor Piazzolla's Four Seasons of Buenos Aires and
Le Grand Tango, Turina's Trio No. 2, and Gershwin's It Ain't Necessarily So.

SUMMER 2008....
Trio Solisti will perform at numerous festivals including The Caramoor Festival in Katonah, NY , The Moab Festival in Moab, Utah, Maverick Concerts in Woodstock, NY, The Chappaquidick Summer Music Festival in Martha's Vineyard, MA, The Cooperstown Festival in Cooperstown, NY, The Grand Canyon Festival in Arizona, and at Telluride MusicFest in Telluride, CO.

Trio Solisti is the founding ensemble of Telluride MusicFest which celebrates it's 6th Anniversary in summer 2008. Guest Artists at Telluride MusicFest in 2008 include clarinetist Jon Manasse, cellist Wendy Sutter, Toby Appel on violin and Kathryn Lockwood, viola. The trio and guests perform 4 concerts which includes music of Beethoven, Franck, Debussy, Glass, Dvorak, Stravinsky, Kodaly, Piazzolla, Ravel, Dohnanyi, etc. The artists also perform a KIDS concert for the children enrolled in the summer program of Telluride Academy.
For more info go to: www.telluridemusicfest.com

NEW WORKS & Premieres:

World Premiere of Moravec Vita Brevis with Soprano Amy Burton
in March 2009 ....
Paul Moravec has written 2 new works for Trio Solisti and soprano Amy Burton
to perform in the 08-09 season. VITA BREVIS is a gorgeous work Moravec originally composed for tenor and piano and has rewritten for Trio Solisti. The World Premiere performance is scheduled for March 20, 2009 at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, NJ.
He has also reworked another work, PARABLES, for Trio Solisti and Amy Burton. The Trio and Ms. Burton have collaborated on several concerts and enjoy performing works such as Beethoven's Irish and Scottish Songs for Soprano & Piano Trio, and Schubert's Shepherd on a Rock for soprano, violin and piano.

and PIAZZOLLA....
Trio Solisti has been performing the music of Piazzolla and has a special arrangement of Piazzolla's popular LE GRAND TANGO transcribed by renowned Argentinian composer Martin Kutnowski. Trio Solisti has been performing other evocative Piazzolla works such as FOUR SEASONS, OBLIVION TANGO, and MILONGA en RE. Their recording of PIazzolla works will be released in Fall 2008. The Trio also performs Kutnowski's original composition TANGO Y2K composed especially for them.


RADIO BROADCASTS:
Trio Solisti on "Performance Today" National Broadcast
Wednesday, August 22, 2007
Trio Solisti playing Rachmaninoff Elegiac Trio No. 1 on 8/2/06 at
Cooperstown Chamber Music Festival, Cooperstown, NY.
American Public Media's Performance Today is heard by over 1.4 million listeners each week on 250 member radio stations around the country.
The program is available for on-demand listening on:
www.performancetoday.org for seven days from the date of broadcast.

Trio Solisti on "Performance Today" National Broadcast
Thursday, May 3, 2007
Trio Solisti playing Paul Moravec’s Scherzo on 10/7/06 at
Troy Chromatic Concerts in Troy, NY.
American Public Media's Performance Today is heard by over 1.4 million listeners each week on 250 member radio stations around the country.
The program is available for on-demand listening on:
www.performancetoday.org for seven days from the date of broadcast.

Trio Solisti on "Performance Today" National Broadcast
Thursday, March 29, 2007
Trio Solisti performs Turina Trio No. 2 in B minor, Op. 76 in Portland, OR
on October 17, 2006 at Lincoln Theater.

Trio Solisti on NPR's "Performance Today" National Broadcast Wednesday, May 31, 2006
Trio Solisti performing Mussorgsky Pictures at an Exhibition at the Cooperstown Chamber Music Festival on 8/3/05.

Trio Solisti on NPR's "Performance Today" National Broadcast Monday, September 13, 2004
Trio Solisti playing Ravel Trio at The University of Georgia in Athens, GA
on 1/17/04.

Trio Solisti on NPR's "Performance Today" National Broadcast Wednesday, April 7, 2004
It's Trio Solisti performing 2004 Pulitzer Prize winner Paul Moravec's Tempest Fantasy on 9/20/03 at Grand Canyon Music Festival. Tempest Fantasy was written for Trio Solisti.

RECENT REVIEWS & QUOTES:

TRIO SOLISTI’s April 2006 DEBUT at WOLF TRAP [read more]
“Trio Solisti dove into the music's unrelenting passion with zealous abandon.....at times, zeal gave way to tender lyricism in a transcendent performance.” - The Washington Post

TRIO SOLISTI at Town Hall, New York, NY,
for The People's Symphony Concerts, March 2005
" ...the performance was consistently brilliant...an incisive account of Ravel’s extraordinary Trio in A minor....dangerous and radical…and compelling."
-The New York Times

TRIO SOLISTI at The Kennedy Center, Nov. 2004
Washington, DC
Trio Solisti: Just the Ticket
" sophisticated and decisive...Their musicality was marked by a hyperconsciousness of melody and balance, pursued with dramatic muscle and dynamic limberness." - The Washington Post

TRIO SOLISTI at Troy Chromatic Concerts,
Troy Savings Bank, Troy NY 10/8/06 [read more]
“Trio Solisti played with rich lush tones, which were amazingly varied in their shadings.... passionate and technically brilliant...” - Schenectady Gazette

TRIO SOLISTI at Chamber Music Monterey Bay,
Sunset Center Carmel, CA 10/15/06 [read more]
“Violinist Maria Bachmann, cellist Alexis Pia Gerlach, and pianist Jon Klibonoff make a sizzling combo of musical artists....fiery intensity.... masterful and lyrical ” - The Monterey Herald

Opening a concert with a work as monumental and all-consuming as Brahms's Piano Trio, Op. 87, is risk-taking in the extreme. Playing at the Barns at Wolf Trap on Friday, the Trio Solisti (violin, cello and piano) dove into this music's unrelenting passion not only without mishaps but with zealous abandon, poignantly attending to the work's restless dissonances with a knowing grasp of its tightly interwoven counterpoint. At times, zeal gave way to tender lyricism in a transcendent performance.

Paul Moravec's "Tempest Fantasy," honored with a Pulitzer Prize in 2004, was the evening's centerpiece. Joined again by Krakauer (sometimes on bass clarinet), the trio lent emotional resonance and rhythmic inevitability to Moravec's torrents of notes.

-Cecelia Porter

TROY -- Trio Solisti opened the 110th season of the Troy Chromatic Concerts Saturday night at the Troy Savings Banks Music Hall with a splendidly performed concert. Violinist Maria Bachmann, cellist Alexis Pia Gerlach and pianist Jon Klibonoff, in their second appearance on the series, were evenly matched, passionate and technically brilliant in the three works on the program. They also showed they had a fine feel for a phrase and an excellent sense of style, as each of the three works were quite different.

They began with what Bachmann told the small crowd was a "mammoth" work by Franz Schubert, his Piano Trio No. 1 in B-flat Major. Never published in his lifetime and only premiered at someone's home one year before his death in 1828, the four movements glisten with a joyous elan. Melodies soar in a natural kind of lyricism. His writing is transparent and has a kind of purity that needs little to bring it to life.

The trio applied a light, well articulated style and were very careful with every detail. They showed a lot of showmanship with their snappy phrase endings and were not shy at taking a few liberties with tempos, like slowing a few bars of music down to better set off the new material that was coming.

Gerlach was particularly intense as she played -- her face radiated her emotion.

Yet everyone played with a lot of feeling and were careful to not let it get out of hand but to keep the pacing smooth. The first movement, which is the longest, had a lot of ebbs and flows. The slower second movement was wonderfully serene and the third was immaculate, very bright and strongly controlled. The final movement was a frolic and very finely etched with a splashy coda.

Paul Moravec wrote Scherzo for the Trio in 2002 as a brief rousing encore. Bachmann said it was a "minature bon bon" and indeed it was. Faintly reminiscent of Bartok's rhythmic percussiveness, it was very jazzy, exciting, had lots of color and was technically demanding. The trio was terrific.

The entire second half was devoted to Tchaikovsky's Piano Trio in A minor, which he dedicated to the memory of his mentor, Nikolai Rubinstein, who died March 23, 1881. The work is unusual in that there are two movements with the second written as a theme and 12 variations. Klibonoff excelled in a part more like Tchaikovsky's Piano Concerto -- the string writing was even more orchestral.

The trio dug in and played with rich lush tones, which were amazingly varied in their shadings. The melody was typically dramatic in the first movement and fairly simple in the second. The variations were usually short and changed moods, tempos and styles frequently. The best were the wonderful grand dance in the sixth and the fiery yet resolute final that ebbed away to nothing.

- Geraldine Freedman

Chamber Music Monterey Bay opens 40th season in style.

Saturday evening at Sunset Center , CMMB launched its 40th year with a party and a performance by Trio Solisti, highlighted by a performance of the Pulitzer Prize-winning "Tempest Fantasy" by Paul Moravec with guest clarinetist Alan Kay. As a drop-in artist of local renown, Stephen Moorer, artistic director of Pacific Repertory Theatre, joined the musicians for a reading of Shakespearian text that mirrored the five movement fantasy.

The trio opened with sensational performances of Joaquin Turina's Trio No. 2 in B Minor, Op. 76 and Brahms Trio 1 in B Major. Violinist Maria Bachmann, cellist Alexis Pia Gerlach, and pianist Jon Klibonoff make a sizzling combo of musical artists. The opening Turina work immediately established the fiery intensity of the trio, which made the sparks jump in this vibrant work with its Spanish flavors. The cellist played with such passion that at times you wondered at the stamina of her instrument, which, by the way, possessed a beautiful, charismatic tone. The ensemble gave a masterful account of the lyrical Brahms trio, with Klibonoff bringing it to a supple and dramatic finish at the keyboard.

Trio Solisti has received critical acclaim across the country for their live programs, media appearances and recordings. The Tempest Fantasy counts as a signature work for the trio, a spirited modern piece that allows them to show off their versatility and strengths as an ensemble while providing a unique opportunity for combining music and words in a concert program.

It was intriguing to witness Moorer's Shakespeare personae meet the talents of Trio Solisti spiced with Kay's clarinet magic. Those of us who appreciate local theater, especially Shakespeare, and also partake of the feast of world-class chamber music by CMMB and other presenters rarely have to opportunity to see them come together. In this instance, the music and narration blended well, with Moorer entering stage left alternately as Ariel, Prospero and Caliban, affecting costume and vocal changes as fit the moment. A knowledgeable Shakespearian actor, Moorer brought the Bard center stage in his own words. The two artistic disciplines, music and theater, created a captivating synergy lending fresh insight to the tale of the deposed Duke of Milan weathering his island banishment.

- BARBARA ROSE SHULER