Sequenza performs on Tuesday in S.L.

In 2001, pianist Yael Weiss performed in Salt Lake City for the first time with Mark Kaplan and Colin Carr. The chemistry worked so well that Kaplan and Carr invited Weiss to fill the vacancy in the Golub-Kaplan-Carr Trio that had been left by David Golub's passing.

Now, three years later, they'll be returning — but this time under the auspices of Sequenza. The concert is sponsored by the Chamber Music Society of Salt Lake City.

Weiss told the story of how it all happened in a phone interview from New York. "The Golub-Kaplan-Carr Trio had been playing together for almost 20 years when David passed away in 2000," she said. "For the first year after that, (Kaplan) and (Carr) had been thinking about whether to even continue playing trios together.

In the meantime, having engagements lined up, they were playing them with various pianists."

Weiss was one of those pianists. After about a year, Carr and Kaplan decided that they did want to continue, and they invited Weiss to be a permanent member of the ensemble.

"At the time, we were Weiss-Kaplan-Carr; that's why Sequenza was put together," said Weiss. "Sequenza has the word 'sequence' to it, and it is in a sense a sequence to the older trio. And we liked the name very much because it also implies that we're very much interested in performing new works and new music, which we'll do in this concert in Salt Lake." She added that the latter inference comes from the name of a series of pieces by Italian composer Luciano Berio.

Weiss also pointed out that they intentionally don't call themselves a trio because they like to alter their makeup by sometimes adding more musicians for particular concerts or pieces, and sometimes reducing their number. Weiss did say, however, that it will be the three of them when they come to Salt Lake City.

Their current tour — which includes the Salt Lake stop — will debut a piece that they commissioned by American composer Michael Hirsch.

The piece is a set of variations on a poem.

"One of the things that's interesting about this piece," Weiss said, "is that the theme itself is not a musical theme but is text. So the first note that one hears of the work is already the first variation. We will be reading the text, of course, to begin the performance. The text is really an integral part of the work."

The poem, she said, talks about a prayer for light in a world that is completely dark and has no sun.

Accordingly, the music has a lot of dark colors and slow music, focusing a lot on atmosphere and color.