Piano trios to watch: Trio Chagall

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This is an excerpt from The Strad June 2024 feature Three’s company: the rise of piano trios. Read the full article here

YCat artist Trio Chagall was formed in 2013, when violinist Edoardo Grieco, cellist Francesco Massimino and pianist Lorenzo Nguyen were in their mid-teens studying in Turin. Possessing a distinctive, beautifully elegant sound, this ensemble has had a steady stream of success including winning several prizes (including the top one) at the 2019 Premio Trio di Trieste competition and first prize at the 2023 Schoenfeld International String Competition; and holding two residencies – at ProQuartet (2023–5) and the ECMA (2021–3).

‘We initially started purely for enjoyment,’ says Massimino, ‘and we were very lucky with our tutors, because in Turin both Edoardo and Lorenzo had teachers who were in piano trios, and then I went to the Stauffer Academy in Cremona and was taught by Antonio Meneses of the Beaux Arts Trio. Competitions have given us work and visibility. ECMA and ProQuartet have been very important, enabling us to share abroad what we have learnt, while still learning. YCat supports us not just on the concert side but because we always have someone to talk to about an idea. We now live in Basel, which is a really fantastic environment. Beyond that, it’s about trying to have the clearest idea of the people we want to be, the musicians we want to be, and what we want to share with the audience. We are still in the process, but we are now in a position to imagine this as our future full-time job.’

Repertoire-wise, one focus is the music of their homeland. ‘There are not so many piano trios from Italy compared with France or Germany,’ points out Nguyen, ‘so we’re interested in promoting Italian works past and present alongside the well-known greats.’

This is an excerpt from The Strad June 2024 feature Three’s company: the rise of piano trios. Read the full article here

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