Horszowski Trio to Premiere Charles Wuorinen's Second Piano Trio at Library of Congress on April 26

April 15, 2025 — The Horszowski Trio (Jesse Mills, violin; Ole Akahoshi, cello; Rieko Aizawa, piano) will give the first performance of Charles Wuorinen’s Second Piano Trio, a work the composer wrote for them shortly before his death in March 2020, as part of the Trio’s debut performance at the Library of Congress’s Coolidge Auditorium on Saturday, April 26, 2025, at 8:00 PM. The program will open with Rebecca Clarke’s Trio, a work which won second prize at Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge’s 1921 chamber music competition. Coolidge was gifted the manuscript of the work by the composer, and in turn, through the Rebecca Clarke Society, gifted it to the Library. The program will continue with Wuorinen’s 1983 First Piano Trio, followed by the new Wuorinen Second Piano Trio, and conclude with Schubert’s Piano Trio No. 2 in E-flat major, D. 929 (1827), performed in its original, uncut version. For ticket information, contact the Library of Congress.

HORSZOWSKI TRIO
From left: Jesse Mills, violin; Rieko Aizawa, piano; Ole Akahoshi, cello
Credit: Lisa-Marie Mazzucco

Jesse Mills shares this story of the Second Piano Trio’s genesis:

“Our Horszowski Trio concert at the Library of Congress is the culmination of our personal relationship with the late great Charles Wuorinen. We are proud to be presenting the world premiere of this fantastic work, which he wrote for us just before he passed away in 2020, alongside his first trio from 1983. I had worked with Mr. Wuorinen many times on several other works over the years, often alongside my mentor, cellist Fred Sherry, who was close with the composer. We were invited to play the First Piano Trio as part of a celebration of Mr. Sherry’s 70^th birthday at Merkin Concert Hall on October 28, 2019, which Mr. Wuorinen attended. We were scheduled to play the work again at our debut at the 92^nd Street Y’s Buttenwieser Hall on February 15, 2019, and Mr. Wuorinen kindly agreed to work with us on his piece in his home in the intervening months. Through this journey, we were excited to learn that Mr. Wuorinen was inspired to compose a new trio for us to premiere.”

Mills continues: “Charles had a fall in September 2019 and subsequently passed away in March 2020. We were deeply saddened by the news, which came just as we had begun a new bleak chapter with COVID. However, out of the blue, on January 7, 2022, Charles’s manager and husband, Howard Stokar, reached out to us with the news that he had found the completed score of the Second Piano Trio, which Charles had in fact already written, even before we had formally finalized the commission!

“Mr. Stokar shared the score with us, and we were overjoyed. We went to work on finding a venue to present this very special premiere. The music world slowed due to COVID and world events, but we are thrilled to be playing the work at the Library of Congress. It is a perfect venue for this occasion, as the Library now houses Wuorinen’s collected papers. The Second Piano Trio is a colorful and deep work, about 10 minutes long, which picks up from the final notes of the first trio and embarks on a completely new musical journey. Every note fits a vivid, specific, musical character, and the work is deeply nuanced and powerful.”

From left: Charles Wuorinen, Jesse Mills, and Rieko Aizawa
at the 92^nd Steet Y, February 15, 2019
Courtesy of the Horszowski Trio 

About the Horszowski Trio. Giving performances that are “lithe, persuasive” (The New York Times) and “eloquent and enthralling” (The Boston Globe), the Horszowski Trio has quickly become a vital force in the international chamber music world since their formation in 2011. In 2019, they made their sold-out London debut presented by Wigmore Hall followed by a successful 21-concert tour of Germany. In 2023, the “Horszowski Trio Prize” was created by the prestigious Fischoff National Chamber Music Competition, to encourage the next generation. The trio is named after the legendary pianist, Mieczyslaw Horszowski, with whom their pianist studied as his last pupil at the Curtis Institute of Music.

Further information:
Robert Besen
BesenArts LLC
Robert@BesenArts.com
646-729-7121

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