Trio con Brio Copenhagen, an internationally acclaimed piano trio, will be opening the 2023-2024 Sunday Concerts in the Galleries series at the North Dakota Museum of Art on Sunday, October 22^nd, 2023. The program will include work by Haydn, Ravel and Beethoven (the “Archduke” trio).  Tickets are available at ndmoa.com/events.

Founded in Vienna at the University of Music and Performing Arts, the trio is now based in Copenhagen and tours extensively worldwide. The Trio was born out of an idea of the coming together of ‘musical pairs’ – of the two Korean-born sisters, Soo- Kyung Hong (cello) and Soo-Jin Hong (violin), with Soo-Kyung and her husband, Danish pianist Jens Elvekjaer. They quickly gained a reputation for their fresh and contemporary approach to the core repertoire. “Works by Beethoven, Schubert and Brahms are transformed in their hands into the alive-and-kicking music of today” said Danish Broadcasting’s Esben Tange. Winning almost all of the major competitions for piano trio – including the ARD (Munich), Trondheim Competition (Norway), Kalichstein-Laredo-Robinson (USA), and the prestigious “P2 Artists Prize” (Denmark) – they are regularly heard at the world’s leading venues including Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, Wigmore Hall, the Tivoli Concert Hall, in Copenhagen.

The American Record Guild has described their concert as “One of the greatest performances of chamber music I’ve ever encountered,” and the British classical music magazine Gramophone wrote, “Superb...Any group would be hard-pressed to imitate this blend of verve and poise...” Their Mendelssohn album was chosen by the UK’s Classic FM as the Best Chamber Music Disc of the year: “Every phrase soars and pulsates with the excitement of a fresh discovery as the Copenhagen players go the full distance with playing of skin-rippling sensitivity... sensational playing...”. The trio’s most recent recordings of the complete Beethoven piano trios were received with the highest critical acclaim, with comments such as “... I was struck... by the feeling of improvisation; of three players moving forward together into a strange and wonderful new world...” (Gramophone). .

The concert is the first of five in this year’s series which will feature a variety of artists and musical forms. The November 19^th concert features Israeli cellist Amit Peled.  In February, the Italian Saxophone Quartet returns for a repeat visit by demand after bringing museum audiences to their feet in a concert four years ago. The Pavel Haas Quartet, named by Gramophone as one of the ten best string quartets of all time, will arrive from the Czech republic in March, and the final concert of the season will be percussionist Ji Su Jung who was recently awarded an Avery Fischer Career grant, the first marimba artist ever to receive that honor.

            Following their Sunday concert, the trio will perform at Schroeder Middle School through a new museum-sponsored program, “Monday Concerts in the Schoool.”

            Underwriter for this series is the Myra Foundation with additional support from the Neel and Iseminger Funds of the Community Foundation of Grand Forks, East Grand Forks and Region, Alerus, and generous individual donors in the community.