Trio to perform twice in Park City

The Claremont Trio will be making its Deer Valley Music Festival debut next week in two concerts.

The first, on Thursday in St. Mary's Catholic Church in Park City, will feature the threesome in Mozart's Trio in B flat major, K. 502; Mendelssohn's Trio in D minor, op. 49; and Leon Kirchner's Trio No. 1.

Kirchner's music probably isn't too familiar with many concertgoers, even though it has much to recommend in terms of structural clarity and melodicism. Kirchner wrote the trio in the early 1950s. Now 86, he is still composing, and a new work of his will be premiered next year by the Boston Symphony, for whom it is written.

"People get a little crazy when they find out we're playing something by a living composer," said the group's pianist Donna Kwong, "but Kirchner's trio is very romantic in many ways. He's a fantastic composer."

Kwong said the Claremont Trio had the opportunity to play the work for Kirchner himself. "We don't often get to play for composers. We were able to ask him about things in the piece. He was very helpful and encouraging."

The program for the Deer Valley festival includes some of the group's favorite works, Kwong said. "The Mendelssohn is one of our favorites. It's got everything. It's so beautifully constructed, and he just makes the instruments sing." (For its debut CD, the Claremont recorded Mendelssohn's D minor Trio, along with his Trio in C minor, op. 66, on the Arabesque label, released last October.)

Mozart wrote relatively few piano trios when compared to his other chamber-music output, but what he did write are among the greatest works in the genre. "The one we're doing is very operatic and very beautiful," Kwong said. "It's the one that's performed more often than the others."

The following evening, the Claremont — which, besides Kwong, is made up of twin sisters Julia and Emily Bruskin — will join the Utah Symphony and associate conductor Scott O'Neil in Beethoven's Triple Concerto at the Deer Valley Amphitheater.

Kwong said the Claremont has played the Beethoven a number of times over the years. "Most of the time we do just chamber concerts, but we play the Triple several times each season." The Triple Concerto gives the group a chance to show audiences a different side of its musical personality. "When we play it, we're three soloists, but also a trio." The Deer Valley concert will also include Beethoven's "Coriolan" Overture and his Symphony No. 7.