CLAVIER TRIO REVIEWS

Clavier Trio
Arkady Fomin,violin
Jesús Castro-Balbi,cello
David Korevaar,piano
Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall
October 1, 2006

In its seventh Weill Recital Hall appearance, Clavier Trio celebrated Mozart’s birthday and its own tenth anniversary with a program called “Mozart On My Mind.” The ensemble was born in 1997 after a spontaneous chamber music session in Durango, Colorado, where the members held a residency at Fort Lewis College; they still play and teach at its Music in the Mountains Festival during summers. Now Trio-in-Residence at the University of Texas in Dallas, they perform there regularly, and were invited to inaugurate the Dallas Symphony Orchestra’s Chamber Music Series. The multi-national Trio consists of the Latvian violinist Arkady Fomin, its only remaining original member, the American pianist David Korevaar, and the Spanish cellist Jesús Castro-Balbi, who joined the group this year.

Fomin was trained at the Latvian State Conservatory; he performs as violinist and conductor throughout Europe, Japan, and the United States; in 2004, he took Clavier Trio to his native Riga for its first international appearance. As a member of the Dallas Symphony Orchestra and director of the New Conservatory of Dallas, Fomin has received the Cowlishaw Artist-in-Residence Award for artistic achievement and contributions to the City of Dallas.

Castro-Balbi studied in France, at Indiana University with Janos Starker, and at Yale and the Juilliard School of Music with Aldo Parisot. He won the Carlos Prieto Competition in Mexico in 2000 and performs internationally as soloist and chamber musician on stage, radio and television. In addition to playing with Clavier Trio, he frequently performs with his wife, pianist Gloria Lin; he is cello professor at TCU and director of its Cello Ensemble and the Faculty and Friends Chamber Music Series.

Korevaar began studying the piano in San Diego with Sherman Storr, and at age 13 became a student of the legendary Earl Wild, with whom he continued to work at Juilliard, earning bachelor’s and master’s degrees. He also studied composition with David Diamond and completed a doctorate under Abbey Simon. Korevaar is associate professor at the University of Colorado; a member of the Boulder Piano Quartet as well as Clavier Trio, he is also an active soloist and has several solo and collaborative CDs to his credit.

At this concert, the players’ technical control, ensemble and rapport were admirable. Fomin’s tone, though pure and sonorous, was a bit undifferentiated in color and intensity, but Castro-Balbi’s was warm and rich, with lots of variety of inflection and nuance. Korevaar not only played extremely well, but despite the wide open piano never overpowered the strings - a rare feat.

The program opened with Aaron Copland’s early trio Vitebsk: Study on a Jewish Theme. Vitebsk is the Russian town made famous by Chagall’s paintings and infamous by its pogroms (and incidentally the birthplace of Fomin’s father); the “Theme” is a Jewish folksong that originated there. Somber, dissonant and dramatic, with eerie effects like quarter-tones and bi-tonality, the music reflects “the harshness of Jewish life in Russia” and sounds a good deal more “modern” than Copland’s later American folk music-inspired works with their sanguine open-air quality.

The Trio celebrated Mozart by playing one of his own trios as well as Arvo Pärt’s Mozart-Adagio, a very idiosyncratic “reworking” of the wonderful, heart-breaking Adagio from the piano sonata K 280. It distorts the music with dissonances, wails and squeals; when the pianist intermittently plays parts of the original (and Korevaar played them very beautifully), one longs to say: “Will the real Mozart please stand up?”

Fortunately, he did – in the C major Trio K 548. A great late work, the piano part, though very brilliant, is not as predominant as those in the earlier trios; instead, three equal players engage in conversational interplay. In the slow movement the most ecstatic, soaring melody is given to the cello, but the development has a surprise in store: the piano captures the singing lines, leaving the strings to provide modulations and transitions with lacey, carefully shaped passage-work. The playing was clear, expressive and perhaps almost too dignified, especially in the rollicking fast movements.

The concert’s celebratory air was enhanced with another great work in triumphant C major: Brahms’ Trio Op. 87. The performance was romantic, warm, flexible, expressive; the Scherzo was fleet and spooky; the Variations, though a bit fast, had a fine gypsy flavor. Despite a request in the printed program not to applaud between movements, the sell-out audience’s enthusiasm could not be curbed.

The Trio has released two CD’s; the first, recorded live in Riga in 2004, includes its previous cellist, Peter Steffens; the second, made in 2006 at TCU in Fort Worth, features the present personnel. Edith Eisler

NEW YORK CONCERT REVIEW MAGAZINE / DECEMBER 2007 ISSUE

Clavier Trio
Arkady Fomin, violin
Jesus Castro-Balbi, cello
David Korevaar, piano
Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall
October 7, 2007

Sometimes New York critics can get grumpy about a program permeated with repertoire staples or familiar composers, but if the program is balanced with differing styles and if the playing is fresh and inspired, I am content. This was the case with Clavier Trio’s Carnegie Hall concert on October 7th. All three composers—Beethoven, Ravel and Tchaikovsky—are familiar, and their works fairly standard, yet the performances by Clavier Trio were not. They were exceptionally good.

Beethoven’s one-movement trio in B-flat major from 1812 was given a delightful reading; it included many moments of bucolic serenity but also some underlying tension that gave it another dimension. The trio’s highly polished ensemble work was in evidence, as Beethoven’s rhythmic nuances and subtle complexities were unusually clear. In Ravel’s masterful trio from 1914, the passion amongst the players was infectious. Evidently, Clavier Trio understood the inspiration behind Ravel’s composition (his mother’s illness and the outbreak of World War I); the music’s tumultuous sections as well as its more tender moments sounded as though Ravel was on stage talking to us from the heart.

Like Ravel’s work, Tchaikovsky’s Trio was also written at an emotional time during the composer’s life (the sudden death of his friend and benefactor Nikolay Rubenstein was shocking news to him). The problems of ensemble coordination are not quite as difficult as in the Ravel, but because Tchaikovsky’s trio is gigantic in scope and structurally complex, the biggest question for a trio is how to sustain this epic work. Clavier Trio handled the difficulty admirably by keeping tempos moving and transitioning smoothly, and by patiently building to climaxes. The lushness of sound was appropriately richer and warmer than the Ravel, and the intonation between violin and cello was excellent.

Clavier Trio was founded in 1997 in Durango, Colorado. The group is Ensemble-in-Residence at The University of Texas at Dallas. They have recorded several CDs, and they have been featured on radio broadcasts in the USA and worldwide. The packed audience, which gave the trio well-earned applause, can look forward to future appearances by this impressive threesome.
-Anthony Aibel

CLAVIER TRIO was born after a spontaneous chamber music session at the 1997 Music in the Mountains Festival in Durango, Colorado. The present members of the Trio are violinist Arkady Fomin, cellist Jesús Castro-Balbi, and pianist David Korevaar The Trio performed in the inaugural Dallas Symphony Orchestra Chamber Music Series at the Nasher Sculpture Center. The CLAVIER TRIO has played to critical acclaim at Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall, and returns with two performances in the 2007-08 Season as well as an appearance at the celebrated BARGEMUSIC concert series in New York City.

CLAVIER TRIO served as the Trio-In- Residence at Fort Lewis College, Colorado and presently is Ensemble-in-Residence at The University of Texas at Dallas. In the 2007-2008 concert season the ensemble will present a World Premiere in New York and Dallas of a composition written for them by distinguished American composer Robert Xavier Rodriguez.

CLAVIER TRIO has recorded several CDs - “Live Performance”,
“Schubert and Café Music”, “Glory and Passion” - with trios by Mendelssohn, Brahms, Beethoven, Schubert, Smetana, Tchaikovsky, Ravel, Suk, Shchedrin and Kreisler. The Trio has been featured on radio broadcasts in the USA and worldwide. During the summer months CLAVIER TRIO performs at the Music in the Mountains Festival in Durango where its members teach and conduct Master Classes.

For more information on CLAVIER TRIO Concerts, Master Classes/ Lectures or ordering CDs call 214-676 0282 (USA) email claviertrio@aol.com or visit www.claviertrio.com