Phoenix Piano Trio with Gareth Brynmor John – SJE Arts International Piano Series

Tickets £6 - £30, can be booked soon via the SJE Arts website.

Season tickets and concession tickets available too.

Ireland Phantasie Trio (Trio No 1) in A minor
Ian Venables ‘Out of the Shadows’ Op. 55 (premier)
Interval
Schubert Piano Trio in B-flat major, D.898

Gareth Brynmor John, baritone
Phoenix Piano Trio – Jonathan Stone, violin; Christian Elliott, cello; Sholto Kynoch, piano

SJE Arts is delighted to be hosting the premier of ‘Out of the Shadows’, a song cycle scored for baritone, violin, cello and piano by renowned British composer, Ian Venables.

Although he works across many genres, Ian Venables is known especially for his art songs. He has written more than sixty and has been variously hailed as ‘Britain’s greatest living composer of art songs’ (Musical Opinion) and ‘…a song composer as fine as Finzi and Gurney’ (BBC Music Magazine). Winner of the 2013 Kathleen Ferrier Award, baritone Gareth Brynmor John joins Phoenix Piano Trio to give the premier.

Alongside the cycle and to complement it, Phoenix Piano Trio opens with John Ireland’s single movement Phantasie, a piece that is in turn dramatic and reflective with moments of humour and some beautiful melodies.

In the last year of his life Schubert composed two piano trios, writing them within weeks of one another. Both brilliant, they are completely different. One is stormy and dramatic, causing Schumann to remark ‘a Trio by Schubert passed across the musical world like some angry comet in the sky ‘. The other is lyrical and life-affirming with echoes of Viennese popular music, of lullabies and the song of a gondolier. It is this one that Phoenix Piano Trio will play in the second half of tonight’s concert.

Generously supported by the Morris-Venables Charitable Foundation.

Also available
Season Tickets for all nine concerts in the 2024 Series at a 20% discount.