Sunday, December 15, 3:00 pm. The Lysander Trio
Note Change in Date and Time
The Lysander Trio — violinist Itamar Zorman, pianist Liza Stepanova, and cellist Michael Katz — last performed for VCC in 2022. Mr. Zorman was also joined by Ieva Jokūbavičiūtė for a violin and piano recital last year. The Lysander’s program this year includes trios from the Romantic mainstream and a rarely-heard but gorgeous work by English composer Rebecca Clarke. Concert Program
Ludwig van Beethoven, 1770-1827: Trio, op. 70, no. 1, in D major, “Ghost”
Rebecca Clarke, 1886-1979: Piano Trio (1921)
Robert Schumann, 1810-1856: Trio no. 1, op. 63, in D minor
Please note that due to unforeseen circumstances, this concert has been rescheduled from Saturday evening, December 14, to 3:00 Sunday afternoon, December 15. All tickets for December 14th will be honored. Otherwise, tickets may be exchanged for future concerts in this season or next, donated to VCC for reuse, or refunded.
The Lysander Piano Trio has been praised by The Strad for its “incredible ensemble, passionate playing, articulate and imaginative ideas and wide palette of colors” and by The Washington Post for “an uncommon degree of heart-on-the-sleeve emotional frankness” and “vivid engagement carried by soaring, ripely Romantic playing.”
The Trio has developed a reputation for exciting programming, finding creative ways to connect well-known masterworks with pieces by lesser-known and underrepresented composers, discovering common threads across cultures and times. Their debut recording, After A Dream (CAG Records), was acclaimed by The New York Times for its “polished and spirited interpretations.” Its most recent album, Mirrors, featuring world premiere recordings of six works the ensemble has commissioned or premiered, was released in early 2021 by First Hand Records. Mirrors included the world premiere recording of Jennifer Higdon’s Love Sweet for soprano and piano trio, with acclaimed soprano Sarah Shafer. Musical America praised Mirrors for being “strikingly inventive…meticulous,” while Gramophone noted that “all six of this release’s compositions benefit from the Lysander Trio’s finely honed ensemble values and well-characterized solo contributions.”
The Lysander Piano Trio, whose name is inspired by the character in Shakespeare’s A Midsummer-Night’s Dream, was formed at The Juilliard School. The Trio studied with Ronald Copes of the Juilliard String Quartet, the late Joseph Kalichstein, and Seymour Lipkin, and had a memorable masterclass with Alfred Brendel. Early in their career, Lysander became a standout at competitions, with top honors at the 2010 Fischoff National Chamber Music Competition, the 2011 Coleman Chamber Ensemble Competition (Grand Prize), the 2011 J. C. Arriaga Chamber Music Competition (First Prize), and the 2012 Concert Artists Guild Victor Elmaleh Competition.
In the 2023-24 season, the Trio performed in series around the US, Canada, and Israel, including their debuts at Parlance Chamber Concerts, Feldman Chamber Music Society, Chamber Music Society of Williamsburg, Northeast Kingdom Classical Series, Blue Hill Concert Association, University of Idaho’s Auditorium Chamber Music Series, Nelson Overture Concerts Society, Kelowna Chamber Concert Association, and Israel’s Keshet Eilon. In the spring of 2023, the Lysander “brought the house down” (Dumbarton Concerts) with its new tango-infused collaboration with Argentine bandoneon player and composer JP Jofre. They look forward to continuing the collaboration in upcoming seasons.
Highlights of the past few seasons include a return engagement at Atlanta’s premier chamber music series at Spivey Hall, a multi-concert residency with Chamber Music Tulsa, a weeklong series of performances and educational activities at New Orleans’s Crescent City Chamber Music Festival, and appearances with Massachusetts’ Valley Classical Concerts, Chamber Music Raleigh, Lee University’s Presidential Concert Series, Concerts International Memphis, Sanibel Music Festival, Florida Keys Concert Association, and Shelter Island Friends of Music, among others. Among special projects, the Trio recently collaborated with clarinetist Charles Neidich in a unique program presented by the Chamber Music Society of Philadelphia and Lincoln Friends of Chamber Music. Orchestral engagements include Beethoven’s Triple Concerto with the DuPage Symphony Orchestra, University of Wyoming Symphony Orchestra, and the Greenwich Village Orchestra in New York City.
The Trio has a long-standing commitment to working with living composers and building a new repertoire for the piano trio. The ensemble’s commissions include Gilad Cohen’s Around the Cauldron (2017), co-commissioned by Concert Artists Guild and premiered at Weill Recital Hall; Ghostwritten Variations, by Venezuelan-American composer Reinaldo Moya; Jakub Ciupinski’s The Black Mirror; and Four Movements Inspired by “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” penned by four pre-teen composers of ComposerCraft from NYC’s Kaufman Music Center and premiered at Merkin Concert Hall in 2014.
The Lysander Trio have got a little Liszt:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cUOE3A3FBys