Piano performances will have their heyday in the next couple of weeks, all in the same venue: Old First Concerts. During somnolent August — with the San Francisco Symphony, Ballet, and Opera all on hiatus save a few festival appearances — we’ll have the exciting opportunity to hear the New Piano Collective in two concerts, and just as the month begins, a performance by the San Francisco Piano Trio.
The latter is the remarkable trio of violinist Axel Strauss, cellist Jean-Michel Fonteneau, and pianist Jeffrey Sykes in concert at 4 p.m. on July 31. On the program: piano trios by Haydn (G Major, “Gypsy Rondo”), Schubert (B-flat Major, D. 898), and Ravel.
The trio has received critical and audience praise for its virtuosic ensemble playing throughout a wide repertoire, ranging from the trios of Haydn and Beethoven to those of Leon Kirchner and Astor Piazzolla.
The New Piano Collective’s inaugural concert, called “Ghost Variations,” is at 8 p.m. Aug. 12. The program comprises Schubert’s Fantasy in C Major, D. 760, George Tsontakis’ Ghost Variations, and Robert Schumann’s Fantasy in C Major, Op. 17.
Four of the Collective’s seven pianists will participate in the first concert: founder and artistic director Jeffrey LaDeur, Johnandrew Slominski, Bobby Mitchell, and Owen Zhou.
The members are alumni of the Eastman School of Music, and their stated purpose is “representing the true essence of the 21st-century musician — artistry, collaboration, and innovation.”
The Collective’s second concert is at 4 p.m. Aug. 14, with LaDeur again, and introducing Paul Sanchez, Jiyang Chen, and Igor Lipinski. The program includes works by Liszt, Mompou, Rameau, Debussy along with Lipinski’s Piano Illusions, and Chen’s transcriptions of works by Tchaikovsky, Rachmaninoff, and Mompou.
The Collective is a project of Fractured Atlas.