Ravel Trio

Hi everyone, it’s been too long! I had a bout of bronchitis which put a hamper on my productive abilities! Currently, I am taking a break from writing my doctoral paper. All I can say is that it is about how different composers set Goethe’s text from one particular scene in Faust. And that I obviously still have a lot of work to do….

When I left off, I had been in quartets for two consecutive concerts, so I was excited and slightly nervous to start the Ravel Trio. It is a notoriously difficult piece, being challenging both stylistically and technically. Luckily I had amazing colleagues pianist Naomi Kudo and Camden Shaw of the Dover Quartet. We had such great chemistry, so rehearsals were such a pleasure even with the pressure of having to learn the piece so quickly.

Personally, I adore Ravel, but had a difficult time with a few of the movements- not technically, but I found some parts slightly awkward which made it more difficult for me to “paint more colors”. There was definitely a few moments when I felt that I was not playing up to my full potential, but thankfully we had help from several coaches.

Here is a photo of a coaching that we had with the amazing and brilliant Jeffrey Kahane.

Our first performance went reasonably well- we were all pretty nervous and were maybe not as happy about it as we could have been. Musicians are notoriously hard on themselves and all three of us were no exception. We couldn’t wait for the next concert! (On a side note, the page turner in this photo is Agata, a pianist in the Young Performer Program, one of my mentees!)
The second concert felt so much better! It may have been that we were more relaxed, or the that the stars were aligned, but it was a very special experience. I could really feel the audience responding, and my lovely colleagues played so beautifully. I hope to play with them both again soon!