Sitkovetsky Trio play Lewes date

On Thursday, December 7 they join the Chichester Chamber Concerts series in the Assembly Room in North Street, Chichester (tickets from Chichester Festival Theatre) when their programme will be Beethoven Piano Trio in D Op 70 No 1 The Ghost; Elfreda Andrée Piano Trio in G minor No 2; and Schubert Piano Trio No 1 in B flat major D898. Then on December 8 The Sitkovetsky Trio will be in concert in Lewes at the East Sussex College at 7.30pm (www.nyslewes.org.uk).

First prize-winners of the International Commerzbank Chamber Music Award, the trio comprise Alexander Sitkovetsky violin; Isang Enders cello; and Wu Qian piano.

“We have been together 16 or 17 years,” says Wu Qian. “Originally we were at the Menuhin Schoo together so we have known each other since before we were teenagers. We didn't start the trio then but we did a lot of chamber music together. It was a specialist music school and it's based on the model of the Moscow Conservatoire. You do all academic work but your life is surrounded by music and performance and practice and I was there from 13 to 18. And then we were all at the Royal Academy of Music together and the opportunity came up to play together and we thought ‘Well, we all know each other’ and it just immediately clicked. We had known each other since childhood and obviously we had had pretty much the same musical education so naturally we understood each other’s language and that's when we started. I suppose we were pretty good already and then we started winning awards and competitions and then we got an agent. I do think you have to be one of the best to sustain yourself but I do feel that we have some advantages. We are all three solo players as well as playing together in the group. Quite often when you have a piano trio you get three very famous soloists that play very well by themselves but maybe they are missing something when they play together but I do feel that we can do that, both sides of it.”

Inevitably the pandemic was a massive interruption, as it was to everyone: “And like everyone we just started doing other things but it was also a big time for reflection. When you're constantly busy on the road and working, sometimes you just don't have the space to reflect and I do think it did us some good. It certainly made us appreciate a live audience more. We did a lot of Zoom concerts and things online were just absolutely not the same. You need to be in the same room and you can't get the same excitement when the audience is just not there. You have to feel the audience right in front of you and you want to feel the butterflies and that excitement and really that's what inspires us as musicians.”

Part also of the excitement is they are a piano trio rather than a quartet, obviously: “One of the things about chamber music is there are so many quartets but for some reason piano trio repertoire does not have the same following yet. We are hoping to change that.”