Aspen String Trio
media release: The Aspen String Trio, one of the world’s most distinguished trios touring today, makes its Wisconsin debut at Token Creek Chamber Music on Saturday November 8.
Known for their elegance, interpretive depth, and refined artistry, the Aspen Trio’s program includes Mozart’s monumental K. 563, regarded as the undisputed pinnacle of mastery in the form, and Harbison’s 2013 trio partially modelled on it, a radiant pillar in his chamber music repertoire, revealing his command of both structure and expressive nuance.
While the string quartet is often regarded as the gold standard in chamber music, the far rarer trio combination of violin, viola, and cello stands as one of the most refined, revealing, and compelling mediums in chamber music, possessing its own lineage, authority, and expressive character.
Occupying a distinct place in the repertoire, the string trio offers a refined interplay of three equal and independent voices whose transparency, individuality, and structural clarity reveal a concentrated artistry unmatched in larger ensembles. The trio is a medium of daring, and dialogue where the three voices create a transparency and intensity uniquely its own. Its apparent simplicity conceals a demanding art, challenging to compose and challenging to perform.
Music:
Mozart’s Divertimento in E-flat major, K. 563 stands as the pinnacle of the string trio repertoire—a work of astonishing breadth, balance, and invention. Written in 1788, it transforms the trio’s inherent transparency into a showcase of compositional mastery, where every line is essential and the three voices have equal weight, revealing Mozart’s unmatched sense of dialogue, proportion, and melodic invention. Across its six movements he achieves a symphonic richness and emotional depth in texture of crystalline clarity. Far from a “divertimento” in the casual, entertainment sense, K. 563 reveals the string trio at its most exalted: intimate yet monumental, the summit of chamber music art.
John Harbison’s String Trio (2013) pays clear homage to Mozart’s K. 563 Divertimento, using that monumental work as both model and point of departure. Like Mozart, Harbison explores how three voices can sustain a rich, continuous conversation, balancing clarity with expressive complexity. The trio’s thematic material draws on the name Lionel Messi, (for Harbison, “the Mozart of soccer”) transformed into musical motives that thread through the score with wit and vitality. The result is a work that honors the classical ideal of balance and form while speaking in a distinctly contemporary voice—athletic, inventive, and deeply alive. Received with unalloyed critical acclaim, Harbison’s trio is considered “a major addition to the string trio repertory.”
The Aspen String Trio (AST) is one of the few professional string trios performing and touring today, celebrated for its visionary programming, virtuoso performances, and engaging presentation style. Performing the complete trios of Beethoven, Mozart, and Schubert alongside major works by Dohnányi, Harbison, Hindemith, Martinů, Rozsa, Klein, Veress, Villa-Lobos, and Ysaÿe, AST is also known for its acclaimed themed programs, including a Goldberg Variations lecture-recital, Remembered Voices—featuring music by composers suppressed under the Nazi regime—and a new program pairing John Harbison’s String Trio (2013), inspired by Mozart’s Divertimento K. 563. Formed over twenty years ago while teaching together at the Aspen Music Festival and School, the trio features violinist David Perry (Pro Arte Quartet, University of Wisconsin–Madison), violist Victoria Chiang (Peabody Conservatory and McDuffie Center), and cellist Michael Mermagen (UMKC Conservatory). Praised for their refined musicianship, tight ensemble, and interpretive depth, AST has appeared in concert series and residencies across North America, combining performances with extensive educational and community outreach. Their recordings include works by Mozart, Beethoven, and Strauss, with the complete string trios and other music of Martinů forthcoming on the Naxos label.
MUSICIANS
David Perry, violin
Victoria Chiang, viola
Michael Mermagen, ‘cello
Token Creek Chamber Music is dedicated to curating thoughtful and immersive cultural experiences. It is the year-round successor to the fiercely ambitious Token Creek summer chamber music festival (1989-2022), the brainchild of composer John Harbison and violinist Rose Mary Harbison, considered “one of the most important annual classical musical events in Madison” (The Capital Times). Beginning in 2024, TCCM expanded to year-round programming through a variety of artistic and presenting partnerships. In addition to concerts and recitals there are literary and arts events, ecology and science forums, an evolving speaker’s series, and other gatherings yet unimagined. The Harbisons continue to serve as artistic directors, and the core values and spirit that distinguished the original Festival continue to shape all endeavors going forward, including unique and imaginative programming, the welcoming beauty of the unusual performance space in a converted barn, and the intimacy and intensity essential for the potent connection between artwork, performers, and listeners.
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