DATE: September 9 2007, 3 PM

SITE: The Progress Energy Center for the Performing Arts 

PROGRAM

• Beethoven: Piano Trio in B Flat Major, Op.11 "Gassenhauertrio"
• Beethoven: Piano Trio in c minor, Op. 1,3
• Beethoven: Piano Trio in B Flat Major, Op. 97 "Archduke"

In 1976 Ulrich Beetz, Birgit Erichson and Gerrit Zitterbart formed the Abegg Trio (the name was chosen in reverence of Robert Schumann and his first published composition, the "Abegg Variations op.1") at the Hochschule fur Musik und Theater in Hanover. They received prizes and awards right from an early stage: at the international contests in Colmar and Geneva (1977), in Bonn (1979), Bordeaux (1981); the Bernhard Sprengel Prize (Hanover 1986) and the Robert Schumann Prize (Zwickau 1992).

The ensemble has toured throughout about 45 countries in Europe, North and South America, Asia and Africa and have been the guest performers at numerous festivals such as the Rheingau and the Schleswig-Holstein Music Festivals, the Ludwigsburg Schlossfestspiele, the Viennese Musiksommer, Styriarte Graz, Bregenz Festival, Enescu-Festival Bukarest, Engadiner Konzertwochen, the Würzburg and Heidelberg Mozart Festivals, and the Music Festivals of Lower Saxony and Kassel.

Since 1982 the Abegg Trio have gone great lengths in their audio presentation: in over 25 recordings. TACET can offer works by Haydn, Louise Farrenc, Clara Schumann, Fanny Hensel, Chopin, Berwald, Kiel, Goetz, Smetana, Tchaikovsky, Rachmaninov, Janacek, Debussy, Ravel, Henze, Acker, Killmayer, Rihm and Erdmann; and also the complete cycles of piano trios by Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, Mendelssohn, Gade, Schumann, Brahms and Dvorak.

On more than five occasions, recordings of trios by Beethoven, Fanny and Felix Mendelssohn, Smetana, Janacek, Debussy and Ravel have been awarded the "Preis der deutschen Schallplattenkritik" and CDs have been selected as exemplary recordings (Mozart by the magazine stereo play, Beethoven and Dvorak by classics today); the magazine Klassik heute rated the second Dvorak CD as the "Classical tip of the month"; Audio chose the Brahms recording for its "CD of the month"; in the Neue Musik Zeitung the Haydn CD was placed in the "Top List of 1993"; in the list of the best of the Suddeutsche Zeitung Joachim Kaiser selected the first Schubert CD as his "disc of the year"; and stereo play chose the second Schubert CD as "Audiophile CD recommendation of the month".

In addition to a wide range of concert performances, Ulrich Beetz and Gerrit Zitterbart are professors at the Conservatories in Weimar and Hanover respectively, and Birgit Erichson taught chamber music at the Franz Liszt Conservatory in Weimar. Together the Abegg Trio pass their skills on to the younger generation.