The Streeton Trio: Vienna Congress

The Streeton Trio performs classical trios by Beethoven, Rossini and Schubert as part of the Prelude in Tea concert series at Sydney’s historic Independent Theatre in North Sydney.

The last-Sunday-of-the-month chamber music series offers afternoon tea from 2:30 as a Prelude to an afternoon concert at 3:30 from some of Australia’s most exciting musicians.

This concert’s program, Vienna Congress, explores the complex musical situation in Vienna, the capital of European music at the beginning of the 1800s. These two decades of great cultural ferment saw the Vienna Congress (1814/1815) as the turning point between the ideals of the Enlightenment and those of the Restoration. There was a radical change in the social role of music, which was no longer used as an instrument of awareness and knowledge, but instead became a narcotic, useful to disguise the harsh reality of post-Napoleonic and post-Enlightenment society. These historical circumstances deeply characterized the work of the most important composers of the time: Beethoven, Schubert and Rossini all of whom gravitated around Vienna influencing one another.

The Streeton Trio comprising violinist Emma Jardine, pianist Benjamin Kopp and cellist Meta Weiss, is named after the Australian Impressionist painter, Sir Arthur Streeton and described by Musica Viva as “Australia’s most internationally successful piano trio”, the Streeton Trio was formed in 2008, in Geneva, Switzerland, by three young Australian musicians.

In 2010, the trio was selected to be a part of the European Chamber Music Academy, where it was in residence for three years. Winner of the 2011 Music Viva Chamber Music Competition, the trio has been laureate of several prestigious international competitions and has won scholarships from Australia Council for the Arts, Arts Victoria and Ian Potter Cultural Trust and, in 2012, was featured as Musica Viva’s Rising Stars ensemble.

The Streeton Trio has received acclaim for performances at international festivals as well as performancing recently at Wigmore Hall, Het Loo Royal Palace (Holland), Shanghai Oriental Arts Centre, Trondheim Festival and concert halls in the United Kingdom, China, Holland, Lithuania, Norway, Germany, France, Austria and Switzerland. Their recordings include the music of Brahms, Ravel, Mendelssohn and Kats-Chernin and feature regularly on classical music radio.

The programme: Vienna Congress
Ludwig van Beethoven: Piano Trio in B flat major, Op.97 “Archduke” (41 mins)
Gioachino Rossini: Overture to The Barber of Seville (arranged for piano trio) (5 mins 30secs)
Franz Schubert: Piano Trio in B flat major, D898 (38 mins)

Tickets – $47 adult | $30 conc | $22 student |$16 children
Bookings ph: 02 9955 3000 or on-line at www.theindependent.org.au