LINCOLN TRIO
MEXICO
DESIREE RUHSTRAT, violin. DAVID CUNLIFFE, cello. MARTA AZNAVOORIAN, piano
Hailed by The Strad as "sensational" and "bewitching," and by Gramophone magazine as "paragons of vitality and control," the celebrated Chicago-based, Grammy Award-nominated Lincoln Trio takes their name of his home, the heart of the United States, the land of Lincoln. Formed in 2003, the Trio has been praised for its outstanding performances of well-known works from the chamber music repertoire and its ability to forge new paths with contemporary repertoire. The group's reputation as a premier ensemble attracts an eclectic audience of sophisticated music lovers, young fans of contemporary programming, and students discovering chamber music for the first time.
Bringing together performing experience from around the world, each member is an internationally renowned artist. Violinist Desirée Ruhstrat has performed in the United States and Europe, appearing at the White House and performing in a live radio broadcast heard around the world with the Berlin Radio Orchestra; cellist David Cunliffe has performed with the BBC and the Royal Scottish Orchestra, as well as performing on tour as a member of the Balanescu Quartet; Pianist Marta Aznavoorian has received critical acclaim for her engagements with orchestras and in concert halls around the world, including the Chicago Symphony Center, the John F. Kennedy Center and the Sydney Opera House.
The Lincoln Trio has performed throughout the United States, with concerts at New York's Lincoln Center's Alice Tully Hall and Carnegie Hall's Weill Room, Bryant Park and Ravinia Festivals, Green Center, Barge Music, Le Poisson Rouge, the Season of Beethoven chamber music from the Indianapolis Symphony, University of Chicago, the Dame Myra Hess Concert Series, and in Springfield, Illinois, where the Trio was chosen to celebrate Abraham Lincoln's Bicentennial celebration with President Barack Obama.
The Lincoln Trio's international engagements include performances in Europe, Asia and South America. Avid promoters of the music of our time, the Lincoln Trio has performed numerous compositions written especially for them, including premieres of seven trios by members of the Chicago Songwriters Consortium, a work dedicated to the Trio by Conrad Tao, a young winner of the the ASCAP, a Chamber Music America Award to commission composer Laura Elise Schwendinger, and works by Cedille Records-affiliated songwriters Stacy Garrop and Mischa Zupko, among many others.
The Trio's extensive discography for Cedille Records includes the Grammy Award-nominated album Trios From Our Homelands; the complete works for strings and piano by Joaquín Turina; and her debut album, Notable Women, which features Grammy and Pulitzer Prize-winning songwriters Jennifer Higdon, Joan Tower, Lera Auerbach, Stacy Garrop, Augusta Read Thomas and Laura Schwendinger. The Lincoln Trio can also be heard on the Cedille Composers in the Loft releases, In Eleanor's Words: Music of Stacy Garrop and The Billy Collins Suite, in addition to the Naxos label release Annelies, based on The Diary of Anne Frank, which also earned a Grammy nomination.
Advocates of music education, the Lincoln Trio has held residencies at the Chicago Institute of Music, San Francisco State University, the University of Wisconsin at Madison, and SUNY Fredonia, and is currently Artist-in-Residence at Chicago's Merit School of Music. .