By Megan Westberg
Violinist Joshua Bell has known cellist Steven Isserlis for about 30 years. His relationship with pianist Jeremy Denk is somewhat shorter in duration—they met at the Spoleto Festival (where Bell had first met Isserlis as well) in Charleston in 2004. The trio has collaborated extensively, performing together, recording together (for more about their 2016 album For the Love of Brahms, read “Joshua Bell Teams Up with Cellist Steven Isserlis and Jeremy Denk“), but never actually touring together. That is, until now.
Advertisement
Bell, Isserlis, and Denk will kick off their ten-city US tour on April 27 in Charleston, South Carolina; it will come to a close in San Francisco on May 12. The program—Mendelssohn’s Piano Trios Nos. 1 and 2; Shostakovich’s Trio No. 2; Rachmaninoff’s Trio élégiaque, and Ravel’s Trio in A minor—was the result of “telephone diplomacy,” according to Isserlis in a statement. “Two gloriously romantic trios are paired with two major wartime masterpieces. It should be quite an emotional journey.”