BEETHOVEN ANNIVERSARY YEAR ENCORE – COVID van B
Raphaël Merlin
World Premiere 17 October 2020
Trio Sōra, the charismatic Paris-based piano trio that won a Borletti-Buitoni Trust Fellowship earlier this year,has used a portion of its BBT funds to commission an encore from composer and Quatuor Ebène cellist, Raphaël Merlin.
Raphaël Merlin. Photo Julien Mignot
The creative seed was sown for this year’s Beethoven 250 celebration, in order to have a Ludwig van B-inspired encore to play at the end of the Trio’s recitals throughout the year. Coronavirus has rather skewed original touring plans but Merlin, with some of the best-known Beethovian motifs in mind – including Symphony No 5, Ghost and Archduke trios and Ode to Joy, with a perhaps a little Debussy, Rossini and Gershwin too – has worked his magic and applied his imagination and humour to produce Covid van B. The premiere takes place on 17 October in Paris at La Maison de la Radio, the occasion being a special farewell concert for cellist, conductor and radio personality Frédéric Lodéon who is retiring from Radio France after a long and successful career as one of France Musique’s most popular presenters.
The Trio is committed to “celebrating the composer’s humanity and tremendous modernity” and, to this end, it has recorded all six Beethoven piano trios for its debut album which will be released on 6 November on the Naïve Classique label.
Trio Sōra
Pauline Chenais piano
Clémence de Forceville violin
Angèle Legasa cello
- Performs internationally at venues including London’s Wigmore Hall and Southbank Centre, Bonn’s Beethoven-Haus, Verbier Festival, Philharmonie de Paris and Auditorium du Louvre and such festivals as Folle Journée de Nantes and Festival d’Aix-en-Provence
- Awards include HSBC Laureate of the Académie du Festival d’Aix-en-Provence (2017), Parkhouse Award (2017), Special Prize of the Verbier Festival Academy (2018) and Borletti-Buitoni Trust Fellowship (2020)
- Collaborations include those with great instrumentalists such as Mathieu Herzog, András Schiff, Menahem Pressler, Antonio Meneses, Andreas Keller, Tabea Zimmermann, Quatuor Ebène and Artemis Quartet
- Debut recording of the complete Beethoven Piano Trios is released on Naïve Records in November 2020
- Commissions: The ensemble is also committed to promoting the work of female composers and contemporary figures such as Dieter Ammann, Kelly-Marie Murphy, Camille Pépin, Wolfgang Rhim and Eric Tanguy
- Residencies include the Fondation Singer-Polignac, Le Dimore Del Quartetto and ProQuartet-CEMC
- Support for Trio Sōra is provided by Günther Caspar Stiftung, Spedidam, the Swiss Life Foundation and Adami
- Instruments: Clémence de Forceville plays a Giovanni Battista Guadagnini violin (1777) and Angèle Legasa a Giulio Cesare Gigli cello (1767), both generously loaned by the Fondation Boubo-Music
Raphaël Merlin