This performance by the Merz Trio took place on Saturday, May 28, 2022 at 3:00 pm.
Program
| Composer | Work | Year |
|---|---|---|
| Johannes Brahms | Piano Trio No. 2 in C major, Op. 87 | 1882 |
| Intermission | ||
| Lili Boulanger | D’un vieux jardin from Three Pieces (arr. Merz Trio) | 1914 |
| Dmitri Shostakovich | Piano Trio No. 1 in C minor, Op. 8 | 1923 |
| Maurice Ravel | La Valse (arr. Merz Trio), M. 72b | 1920 |
About the Merz Trio
Winners of the Naumburg, Concert Artists Guild, Fischoff, and Chesapeake Competitions, Merz Trio are passionately committed to reshaping the narrative of classical music through vibrantly dynamic programming and wide-ranging interdisciplinary collaboration.
Their narrative programming style juxtaposes classical standards, new music, and their own arrangements of familiar and forgotten works, fluidly interwoven and guided with speaking from the Trio’s members. Their interdisciplinary collaborations include ongoing projects with dancer Caroline Copeland, Sandglass Puppet Theater, chef David Bouley, and videographer Chris Kitchen.
In coming seasons, Merz Trio are looking forward to debuts at Merkin Hall in NYC, the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston, and the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam. They have been encouraged in their explorations by numerous institutional homes around the world, including the New England Conservatory, Yellow Barn, Snape Maltings, Avaloch Farm Institute, the Naumburg Foundation, the Lake Champlain, Olympic, and Chesapeake Music Festivals, and the Fischoff Competition.
Merz Trio are represented by Concert Artists Guild and make their homes in Boston.
About the Artists
Brigid Coleridge
Brigid Coleridge is an Australian violinist and poet currently based in the US. She is a founding member of the award-winning Boston-based piano trio, the Merz Trio, with whom she has most recently been in professional residence at the New England Conservatory of Music. With the Trio, Brigid is a regular invitee to the Olympic, Lake Champlain and Chesapeake Festivals and has undertaken residencies at Yellow Barn, Snape Maltings and Avaloch Farm Institute. The trio received the 2021 Naumburg Competition First Prize, and their first album “Ink” debuted in 2021 at #2 in the Classical charts. Notable concert debuts for the 2022/2023 season included the Concertgebouw and Carnegie Hall.
As a recitalist, Brigid has performed in Australia and internationally in venues such as the Royal Albert Hall, Wigmore Hall, Jordan Hall, the Kennedy Center and the Purcell Room. Highlights include a tour of Holland and an artist residency undertaken for Yellow Barn Festival in the US. Brigid’s recital projects often focus on her interest in music, literature and theatre, displaying a multidisciplinary engagement with the works she presents. She is particularly interested in exploring the theatrical possibilities of performance.
Brigid holds a doctoral degree in music from the Graduate Center of the City University of New York, where she worked on Beethoven’s late Mass, the Missa Solemnis. In addition, Brigid holds an Artist Diploma and a Masters Degree in Performance from the Royal College of Music, London. She graduated BA/BMus from the University of Melbourne following studies in English Literature, French Language and Violin Performance. Important music mentors include Donald Weilerstein, Daniel Phillips, Maciej Rakowski and Mark Mogilevski.
Brigid is also a published poet whose work has appeared in Australian and international publications. She is the winner of the 2023 Gwen Harwood Prize for Poetry.
Julia Yang
Praised for “her sense of joyful virtuosity” (South Florida Classical Review) as a concerto soloist, Julia Yang is a dynamic and versatile cellist, founding member of the Merz Trio and former member of Carnegie Hall’s Ensemble Connect and the New World Symphony.
As a soloist, Ms. Yang was featured in spring 2019 on Performance Today as a Young Artist in Residence and has garnered top prizes at numerous competitions such as the Lennox International Competition and the Union League of Chicago’s Young Artist Competition. She has performed as a concerto soloist with orchestras including the New World Symphony Orchestra, Central Florida Symphony Orchestra, and Northwestern University Symphony Orchestra.
An avid chamber musician, Julia has been noted for her “ecstatic solos” (Reading Eagle), “deep tone,” and “precision,” (South Florida Classical Review) and has performed throughout the United States and internationally in Europe, Australia and Canada. Festival appearances include Marlboro, Lake Champlain Chamber Music Festival, Yellow Barn, Perlman Chamber Music Program, Britten-Pears’ Young Artist residencies, and Poland’s Krzyzowa-Music. Her solo and chamber performances have been broadcast throughout the United States as well as in Germany, and she can be heard on CD with the Aldeburgh Strings (Linn Records).
As an orchestral leader, Ms. Yang has toured as principal cellist of the New World Symphony, and has performed as principal under conductors such as Michael Tilson Thomas, Susanna Malkki, James Gaffigan, John Adams, and Leonard Slatkin and many others in halls ranging from New York’s Carnegie Hall and Boston’s Symphony Hall to D.C.’s Kennedy Center and Miami’s New World Center and Arsht Center.