This is the annual Kirkby Lonsdale concert as part of Lake District Summer Music’s International Festival. This year featuring the Mithras Piano Trio, who are all current postgraduate students at the Guildhall School of Music.

The opening of this concert begins with what is now believed to be Haydn‘s final piano trio composed after Beethoven‘s first works in this medium. Haydn warned his pupil they would not be well-received by the Viennese public, leading to a rift between the two. Bridge‘s Cobbett prize-winning work of 1907 leads us into Shostakovich‘s Second Trio – those with long memories will recall we heard the First Trio here at Kirkby Lonsdale last year. Composed in 1944, its use of klezmer melodies is a tribute to the Jewish people, of whose fate the Russians were now becoming aware, having only just come out of their own horrors in the siege of Leningrad.

Programme

Haydn Piano Trio in E flat major, Hob.XV:30 Bridge Phantasie in C minor Shostakovich Piano Trio No.2 in E minor, Op.67

Mithras Piano Trio

Ionel Manciu violin Leo Popplewell cello Dominic Degavino piano

Formed of current postgraduate students at the Guildhall School of Music, the Mithras Piano Trio came together in 2017 under the guidance of Matthew Jones, Carole Presland and Ursula Smith. As well as benefitting from tuition with members of the Endellion Quartet, it has also received regular coaching from András Keller, and was selected to perform in masterclasses with Ralf Gothóni and Levon Chilingirian.

Ionel, Leo and Dominic, all scholarship holders at GSMD, are experienced collaborators, having appeared in the Barbican, City of London Festival, Harmos Festival Portugal, and Orpheus and Bacchus Festival among others, and individually they have had international successes including at the Concours International de Piano d’Epinal, the Imola International Piano Awards, the Orpheus Musician of the Year Competition, the Brant International Piano Competition and Bromsgrove International Musicians’ Competition. Dominic was also the keyboard section winner of both the Tunbridge Wells International Young Concert Artists Competition and the 2017 Royal Over-Seas League Music Competition. In April the Trio won 2nd prize at the First Intercollegiate Piano Trio Competition, and it has been chosen to perform in the inaugural Chamber Music Festival at GSMD in July.