Minerva Piano Trio
About the Minerva Piano Trio
Annie Yim founded the Minerva Piano Trio in 2013. The Trio have established themselves as one of the UK’s most exciting trios whose playing has been described as “wonderfully rich, thunderous, and lyrical” (Classic FM). Acclaimed for their performances of the richly varied traditional repertoire, the Trio are equally passionate about reviving important but rarely performed works, championing leading young composers by commissioning new works and arrangements, and collaborating with other art forms such as dance. They were chosen as Making Music UK Selected Artists 2018 and St John’s Smith Square Young Artists in residence 2016/17. The Trio was formed in 2013, and made their debut soon after at the Southbank Centre’s Purcell Room in 2014 as Park Lane Group Young Artists. The Trio have broadcast live frequently on BBC Radio 3 and Classic FM and have worked closely with contemporary composers including Roxanna Panufnik, Cheryl Frances-Hoad, Gavin Higgins, and David Knotts. They are grateful for the support of ChamberStudio and the Richard Carne Trust, and have worked with eminent musicians as Gordon Back, members of the former Florestan Trio, and Gabor Takacs-Nagy. The Trio’s debut album with SOMM Recordings in 2022 is acclaimed as “hugely rewarding…not just flawless technique but flawless musicality” (British Music Society); “nuanced and imaginative creativity” (International Piano Magazine).
An audience that braved the rigours of Storm Darragh on Saturday evening were richly rewarded with a beautifully balanced programme of piano trios spanning three centuries. Mozart’s lively Trio in B Flat Major was at the start of the process of liberating the three instruments from the roles they had historically fulfilled and provided greater opportunities for the violinist to shine. Beethoven’s highly varied Ghost trio in D Major, with its wonderfully mysterious slow movement, written twenty years later, shows how far this process had advanced, with virtuosic, solo roles for all three instruments. Moving just over one hundred years on from that, Ravel’s Piano Trio in A Minor written immediately prior to the start of the First World War, inhabits a quite different world and makes extreme demands on all three players both together and in highly exposed and deeply expressive solo roles. At times it approaches a near symphonic density of texture without, in a performance as brilliantly clear as this one, losing any of its fine detail. The Minerva Piano Trio played this highly varied repertoire with impressive technical skill and deep emotional commitment. Ravel’s technically demanding but emotionally very direct music made a huge impression on the audience and was the most emotionally satisfying performance that I have witnessed in a long time.