Artist description The Amici Trio is Canada's leading Chamber Ensemble. Composed of Principal Members of the Toronto Symphony, and the University of Toronto School of Music. They have performed throughout the World.

Music Style Classical Trio and Chamber Performances by Toronto Symphony Members

Musical Influences Toronto Symphony

Similar Artists Beethoven, Bach, Mozart

Artist History Since her debut with the Toronto Symphony at age nine, Canadian pianist Patricia Parr has been soloist with major orchestras including Philadelphia, New York, Pittsburgh, Cleveland and Toronto. Internationally renowned for the sensitivity and integrity of her playing, her outstanding qualities as a chamber musician have resulted in invitations to numerous festivals, such as the prestigious Marlboro Music Festival, and collaborations with many ensembles including the Guarneri, Orford and Vermeer string quartets. She has toured Europe, Australia, Mexico, the US and Canada, and frequently performs and records as a duo recitalist.Ms. Parr is a graduate of the Curtis Institute of Music, where she studied with Isabelle Vengerova and Rudolf Serkin. Since 1974, she has been a professor at the University of Toronto's Faculty of Music, teaching piano and chamber music. A native of St. Catharines Ontario, David Hetherington received his musical training at the Royal Conservatory of Music and the University of Toronto, furthering his studies in New York, Italy, and Germany with Claus Adam, Andre Navarra and Paul Tortelier. Currently the Assistant Principal Cellist of the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, Mr. Hetherington teaches cello and chamber music at the Royal Conservatory of Music.Much in demand as a chamber musician, he collaborates with several small ensembles, including his own string quartet "Accordes." Through this group, he has developed a keen interest in contemporary music, performing regularly for "New Music Concerts" and other contemporary music organizations. In addition to his recording activity with Amici, Mr. Hetherington has recorded for the CBC and for the Canadian Music Centre's "Centrediscs," with whom he has recently released the premiere recording of Talivaldis Kenins' prize-winning cello sonata. Joaquin Valdepenas, principal clarinetist of the Toronto Symphony Orchestra and conductor of the Toronto Symphony Youth Orchestra, makes international appearances both as soloist, chamber musician and conductor and has performed at festivals throughout the world, including those of Aspen, Banff, Casals, Edinburgh, Mostly Mozart, Vancouver and Nagano, Japan. He has performed with musicians such as Kathleen Battle, Glenn Gould, Cho-Liang Lin, Rudolf Serkin, Richard Stoltzman and Pinchas Zuckerman and has collaborated with the American, Muir and Orford string quartets, the Kalichstein-Laredo-Robinson Trio and the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center. He has been involved in commissioning many works by Canadian composers and recently gave the American premiere of Arias for Clarinet and Orchestra by Michael Colgrass with the Buffalo Phtlharmonic. Mr. Valdepenas made his European debut with the BBC Welsh Symphony on BBC television and has recently recorded the Mozart Clarinet Concerto with the English Chamber Orchestra (Summit DCD 131). He has recorded extensively for the CBC, Centrediscs, Sony and Summit labels.

Group Members Principal Clarinetist of the Toronto Symphony - Joaquin Valdepenas, Pianist Patricia Parr, Cellist David Hetherington.

Instruments Clarinet, Cello, Piano, various other guests

Albums LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN

Press Reviews This disc is proof that outstanding releases are by no means the exclusive province of big names on big labels. It is one of the most delightful recordings I have encountered for some time. Amici is a Toronto-based group which expands and mutates according to the requirements of the repertoire at hand. Amici is Italian for "friends," and this is exactly how these performances sound: a group of friends getting together to make music in the spirit of good fun, which is really what chamber music is all about. Everyone is quite plainly having a good time, and their enthusiasm positively leaps out of the speakers. Of course, these musicians also happen to be among Canada's finest, most gracing the principal chairs of our major orchestras, and that means playing of the highest caliber from everyone. Patricia Parr's light and pearly but brilliant playing is a particular delight, and James Somerville's stunning arpeggio near the end of the Quintet's first movement will send most horn players back to their practice rooms in despair. Both works on the disc are early Beethoven, and both in a key he used plentifully in his early compositional years. The Trio is Beethoven's own transcription of his Septet. Op. 20, for strings and winds, a work that has been continuously popular since its first publication. Though only four years separate the composition of the Quintet and the Septet, in 1796 and 1800 respectively. Beethoven traveled far in thattime. He is flexing his compositional muscles in the Quintet, but between this and the Septet he wrote his six remarkable string quartets, the Op.18 set, a great step forward. The Septet - or as we hear here, Beethoven's fine transcription of it - is one of his first really great works, with a depth and level of invention hardly to be found in the Quintet. Both works, however, are tuneful and entertaining, and provide plenty ofscope for brilliant playing (particularly on the piano, at which Beethoven was himself a famous virtuoso). Amici laudably also includes all repeats. They take the final Presto in the Trio at breakneck speed, but the result is exhilarating rather than hasty. The Trio's first movement, taken at a somewhat less hair-raising speed, is given a delightful performance. The disc offers, in short, engaging music brilliantly played with infectious good humor, and should be acquired without delay by every lover of chamber music. And even by those who are not. -Tanya Buchdahl,CLASSICAL MUSIC MAGAZINE

Location Toronto, CANADA - Canada

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