Montrose Trio Set for CMSDetroit Series, 11/14

By: Oct. 20, 2015
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The Montrose Trio, a major new piano trio that made its international debut as an ensemble on the Chamber Music Society of Detroit series in 2013-14, will return to the CMSDetroit Signature Chamber Series Saturday, November 14, 2015 at 8 PM. The concert takes place at Seligman Performing Arts Center, located at 22305 West 13 Mile Road (at Lahser Road) in Beverly Hills, on the campus of Detroit Country Day School.

The program includes Turina's Spanish-inflected Piano Trio in B minor, Op. 76; a new work by Michigan native James Lee III, his Piano Trio No. 2, "Temple Visions" (co-commissioned by the Chamber Music Society of Detroit with support from Adrienne and Robert Z. Feldstein); and Brahms' Piano Trio in B major, Op. 8.

A Pre-Concert Conversation with Montrose Trio members Jon Kimura Parker, Martin Beaver and Clive Greensmith and composer James Lee III begins at 6:45 PM and is free to ticket-holders. CMSDetroit President Steve Wogaman will host the talk.

Tickets priced at $32 to $64 for adults and $16 to $32 for students are available online at www.ChamberMusicDetroit.org or by phone at 248-855-6070. $10 student rush tickets are available one hour prior to concert, based on availability.

The Montrose Trio grew out of a long and fruitful relationship between Jon Kimura Parker and the Tokyo String Quartet, one of the supreme string quartets of the 20th century. (Jon Kimura Parker appeared with the Tokyo Quartet on the Chamber Music Society of Detroit series three times, in 2003, 2003 and 2006.) The quartet had decided to disband in 2013 following the retirement of two of its longtime members, and Mr. Parker was the Quartet's final guest pianist. A backstage conversation with the quartet's first violinist Martin Beaver and cellist Clive Greensmith led to the Montrose Trio's creation.

After a cancellation left an opening in the CMSD's 2013-14 series, CMSD President Steve Wogaman had a series of conversations with the three musicians as they were in the process of forming the trio, and the resulting engagement was the brand new ensemble's first ever public concert. CMSD audiences responded with an enthusiasm that has been echoed by both audiences and critics in the Trio's subsequent appearances on major chamber music series. Following its Washington, D.C. area debut at the Wolf Trap Festival last summer, the Washington Post raved, "Their performance delivered absolutely top-notch music-making, as fine as one could ever expect to hear ... the group made a forceful statement, with loads of personality and nearly perfect technical finish ... they are poised to become one of the top piano trios in the world."

Following two summer appearances at the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival, the Montrose Trio's 2015-2016 season includes concerts with the Philadelphia Chamber Music Society, the Oregon Bach Festival

Winter Series, the Friends of Chamber Music Portland, Duke Performances, Da Camera of Houston, the Chamber Music Society of Fort Worth and the Shriver Hall Concert Series in Baltimore, among others, in addition to its November 14 Chamber Music Society of Detroit concert.

Composer James Lee III was born in 1975 in St. Joseph, Michigan. He received an undergraduate degree in piano performance, as well as his masters and doctorate degrees in composition, from the University of Michigan, where his composition teachers included William Bolcom, Bright Sheng, and Michael Daugherty. He also studied at the Boston Symphony's Tanglewood Institute under Osvaldo Golijov and Kaaija Saariaho, received the Charles Ives prize for music composition from the American Academy of Arts and Letters in 2003 and was a Fulbright scholar in Brazil. Mr. Lee's works have been performed by such major U.S. orchestras as the National, Detroit, Indianapolis, Baltimore, Cincinnati, New World and Memphis Symphony Orchestras, the Philadelphia Orchestra, as well as by the Baltimore Choral Arts Society and the Boston Symphony Chorus. James Lee III is an associate professor of music at Morgan State University in Baltimore.



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