A piano trio comprised of Miriam Stewart-Kroeker on the cello, Marcus Scholtes on violin, and Heidi Wall on the piano will be performing the Shostakovich Trio No. 1 and the Tchaikovsky Piano Trio in A Minor.
The Shostakovich isn't played very often (compared to his popular second piano trio), but it should be because it's a truly wonderful work, composed early in his career (as a student, in fact). It is a single-movement work. It has many characteristics of his compositional style, but also has some surprising elements that we don't normally associate with Shostakovich's works.
The Tchaikovsky is an epic work (in length, melodic material and sheer number of notes), dedicated to his close friend and mentor, Nikolai Rubinstein, composed the year he passed away. This work is the only piano trio written by Tchaikovsky, but a truly special one - a haunting, melancholic theme, a versatile set of variations and a vigorous, passionate finale.
Miriam Stewart-Kroeker