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Familiar Names, Fresh Faces CLAREMONT TRIO Formed in 1999 by three Juilliard students, the Claremont Trio is on the fast track to success. The Washington Post has praised the players' 'astonishing facility' and 'precision', and the Cincinnati Enquirer recently extolled their 'fresh approach'. Encouraged early on in their musical partnership by success in the 2001 Young Concert Artists auditions, Donna Kwong (piano) and twin sisters Emily (violin) and Julia Bruskin (cello) - all still in their 20s - went on to win the first-ever Kalichstein-Laredo-Robinson Trio Award, presented last year. 'We've been really lucky,' says Emily Bruskin. 'The KLR Award was a big deal, helping us to release our first CD and putting us on major concert series around the US.' Bruskin also credits Isaac Stern; the Claremont participated in one of Stern's Carnegie Hall workshops in 2001 and the players were buoyed by his enthusiastic support. I first heard them at the 2003 Bard Festival in a searing performance of Vitezslav Novak's Trio. Word is now spreading, and for such a young ensemble the Claremont has an impressively well-packed concert calendar. Upcoming gigs unclude appearances at the Kravis Center in West Palm Beach in January (Florida), Wolf Trap in April (Virginia), and New York's Merkin Hall in May, their second appearance in that city this season. And the musicians are champing at the bit for more, hoping to bring their music making to Europe and Asia. 'Performing is what it's all about,' Bruskin says. 'We want to play as much as we can, and for the widest possible audience.' Violin - Emily Bruskin: Nicolas Lupot, 1793 Return to Recent Press |
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