For more than three decades, the New World Trio, featuring Anhared Stowe on violin, Peter Zay on cello and Pi-Hsun Shih on piano, has brought the excitement and intimacy of chamber music to live audiences throughout New England. Today’s program, “The Influence of a Woman”, will feature Tchaikovsky’s Trio in A Minor op.50 and Debussy’s the Premier Trio in G Major and highlights the influence of Nadezhda von Meck on both composers. 

Tchaikovsky wrote his great piano trio, the brilliant and elegiac Trio in A Minor op.50, in memory of his mentor and friend Nicolai Rubenstein, in 1882, while receiving financial support from Madam von Meck. Though by mutual agreement they never met, their correspondence over their 13-year relationship forms one of the great epistolary exchanges in western music. Debussy, at the tender age of 18, lived for several months with Madam von Meck and her children, acting as their teacher and accompanist, and providing impromptu chamber concerts at Madam’s request.The Premier Trio in G Major was written for one of those soirees. It is a romantic charmer, not in the style of later Debussy impressionism, but a winner nonetheless.

This concert is made possible by the generous support of the Friends of the Cheshire Library!