Exciting young trio, Fournier Trio, joins forces with clarinettist Peter Whyman for a concert moving from the celebratory to the ecstatic. The brilliant young Fournier Trio made their debut at New York's Carnegie Hall earlier this year. Their energy and Schubert's piano trio in Bb seem like the perfect combination: a bright, breezy breath of live-enhancing fresh air, and the ideal way to kick off a weekend of concerts.
For the second half the trio will be joined by clarinettist Pete Whyman to play a truly iconic twentieth century piece, Olivier Messiaen's Quartet for the end of time - written for the musicians the composer found in the prison camp where he was being held - and premiered there in 1940. Messiaen's music is influenced by his own fervent spirituality and a fascination with birdsong - as well as the new music being created around him in the mid-century. The result sounds like no-one else, at various times quirky, strange, intense, exotic ... but also impassioned, especially in the parts of the work which focus on the violin and cello, where Messiaen's endless melodies seem to spiral and soar up and away into space.
Pete Whyman is a highly regarded international soloist on both saxophones and clarinet, and has performed at most of the worlds great concert halls. His musical world is extremely eclectic, including and while he has played with the Philharmonia, the Royal Opera House Orchestra, Birmingham Contemporary Music Group, BBC Concert Orchestra, the London Sinfonietta and as the clarinet soloist under Leonard Bernstein in his Prelude, Fugue and Riffs,he also has a substantial jazz career and has been a member of Between the Notes, the Steve Martland Band, and the Delta Saxophone Quartet, not to mention 20 albums over a 30-year association with Mike Westbrook.