The New World Trio presents its 2023-2024 Season:
Commemoration Motivation Determination
Looking Back and Going Forward
Hailed as “…an exemplar” by Chamber Music America, the New World Trio has been lauded right from its inception for its innovative programming. This has been a large portion of its mission, and NWT has a history of commissioning and performing modern works along with established standards. This is as it should be for, as with other fine arts, classical chamber music has been developed over centuries. Each generation of composers is fully conscious of this past, and as individuals they are intensely aware of the double demand this history has placed upon them. The first is a simple desire to measure up: the recognized composers of earlier periods have set a standard of expression that drives (or haunts) contemporary composers. The second imperative is the creation of new and insightful works, pieces that embrace the sensibilities of our own time without squandering those of the past. In an age of instant gratification, this approach to music-making is unique indeed.
This ethos of going forward within a context of established quality applies to musicians as well, for it requires a mastering of the many styles found within classical music. This is particularly true with chamber music, where each player is effectively an “interactive soloist” who must continually respond and adjust to the other performers.
This year, New World will continue to explore the relationship between past, present, and future. The first program, Commemoration, will include Rachmaninoff’s early one-movement elegiac trio and Daron Hagen’s highly-lauded, commemorative trio “Angel Band”. The composer will join WNEPM’s classical music host John Nowacki for a pre-concert discussion. The powerful, orchestral Shostakovich Trio #2 concludes the program. “Motivation”, program #2, features pieces by composers at their hard-working peak: Foote, Frank Martin, and Schumann. Our final program, “Determination”, reflects the fortitude needed to achieve acceptance in what was once a nearly exclusively male profession. The works of Rebecca Clarke, Fanny Mendelssohn Hensel, and Chen Yi are all well-crafted, lyrical, and simply beautiful.
Commemoration
October 15, 2023 - 2pm
Pre-concert talk at 1:30 with NEPM’s John Nowacki and composer Daron Hagen
Remembrance of people and events and the desire to tell their story has been a powerful motivator for many composers to produce their most inspired works. This program features three remarkable pieces by giants of the 19th, 20th, and 21st centuries. Rachmaninoff wrote this one movement trio in his final year of conservatory, and it models his mentor Tchaikovsky’s famous elegiac trio -and perhaps the end of his “apprenticeship”. Daron Hagen has created a contemporary masterpiece based on the gospel hymn “Angel Band” which was written to commemorate Joyce Ritchie Strosahl, who lived an inspiring life as a musician, instructor, and benefactor. In the concluding trio, Shostakovich employs motives ranging from funereal to danse macabre in a powerful and deeply moving tour de force written during WW2.
Trio elegiaque No. 1 in G minor
Sergei Rachmaninoff
Piano Trio No. 4: Angel Band
Daron Hagen
Trio in E minor, Op. 67
Dmitri Shostakovich
Commemoration II
November 5, 2023 - 4pm
Unitarian Universalist Society East
153 Vernon Street West
Manchester CT
A special performance of this powerful concert to benefit UUSE.
Suggested Donation: $20.00
This powerful, well-received concert, first performed by us October 15, features works by Rachmaninoff, Daron Hagen, and Shostakovich. We hope you join us.
Trio elegiaque No. 1 in G minor
Sergei Rachmaninoff
Piano Trio No. 4: Angel Band
Daron Hagen
Trio in E minor, Op. 67
Dmitri Shostakovich
Motivation
January 21, 2024 - 2pm
“…You have not yet invented nor thought anything which others have not thought or invented before.” ... “Send light to the dark hearts of men, that is the duty of the artist.”
– Robert Schumann
Bostonian Arthur Foote strove to bring American music to the fore. A classicist, he brought a touch of American color and even transcendentalism to his aspirational and noble second trio written in 1908. The iconoclastic Swiss composer Frank Martin created a fantasia jewel in the 1920’s. While known for his deeply religious choral music in his later years, this scintillating and rhythmically driven piece is based on ten Irish folk tunes. The program concludes with Robert Schumann’s quintessential Romantic era trio with its deep orchestral scoring and triumphant ending.
Piano Trio No. 2 in B-flat major
Arthur Foote
Trio on Popular Irish Melodies
Frank Martin
Trio No. 1 in D minor, Op. 63
Robert Schumann
Determination
April 14, 2024 - 2pm
Under-recognized in their time, thwarted by society’s expectations of their gender, these three pioneers created extraordinary works of craftsmanship, lyricism, and beauty. British-born Rebecca Clarke is now coming into her own with resurrection of her chamber works. A travelling virtuoso violist in the 20’s, she submitted her trio and viola sonata under a man’s name in a competition where she became runner-up for first prize. If anything good came out of Mao’s Cultural Revolution, his rural relocation program was to introduce a whole generation of future Chinese composers to the music of their homeland, to be incorporated into, in Chen Yi’s case, an appealing blend of Chinese and Western influences. Fanny Mendelssohn Hensel has always lived in her more famous brother’s shadow, but this trio demonstrates she was his equal in skill and imagination
Piano Trio
Rebecca Clarke
Tibetan Tunes
Chen Yi
Piano Trio in D minor, Op. 11
Fanny Mendelssohn Hensel
All concerts are held Sunday afternoons at 2pm at St John's Episcopal Church, 679 Farmington Ave., West Hartford, Connecticut. Plenty of free and secure parking, with easy access to I-84.Please join us at the reception that will follow each concert.
New World Trio is Ensemble-in-Residence at St John’s Episcopal Church. In keeping with its mission to serve all, St John’s does not sell admission tickets as such; in lieu of ticket sales, a suggested voluntary donation to New World Trio of $20 can be made either at the door or in advance. For those patrons who do wish to donate in advance, a special seating section at the front of the sanctuary will be cordoned off for advance donors and full-season donors. The suggested full-season donation is $50 [checks made out to New World Trio]. NWT will acknowledge your advance donation and any additional donations by mail. For more information call 860 586-8579 or email: newworldtrio@outlook.com.