A whirlwind tour by a trio of Generation Z chamber artists will touch down in Gibsons before performing back-to-back concerts in Radzyń Podlaski, Poland and Vienna, Austria.
The Cuore Piano Trio features three musicians with skyrocketing reputations, all born in Poland in the late 1990s, who cemented a connection with the Sunshine Coast last year.
Cellist Jadwiga Roguska participated as a solo artist in the Pacific Region International Summer Music Association (PRISMA) festival in Powell River in 2022. Last summer, the entire Cuore group served as the festival’s ensemble in residence, with pianist Szymon Ogryzek and violinist Zuzanna Budzyńska alongside the returning Roguska.
Immediately after arriving in Vancouver, Roguska and Budzyńska were asked by BC Ferries to perform on its Howe Sound sailing. The ferry corporation is a sponsor of the annual PRISMA event.
“We basically landed in Vancouver and we had one hour to get to Horseshoe Bay,” said Budzyńska. “Jadwiga was playing a rented cello and we had to perform a Mozart duo, like half an hour of music, on the ferry. The floor was moving. It was a funny time, but it was great.”
“We like to do unusual things or things that people don’t do,” added Roguska. “When PRISMA offered the chance for us to play on the ferry, we were like: of course we will do it, even though it requires more concentration than a normal concert.”
During their 2023 visit, the Cuore players scouted a Gibsons venue and booked a date at the High Beam Dreams event centre. Their matinee recital on March 9 will be their 13th performance in a frenzied two-week concert tour that includes Vancouver, Parksville, Victoria, Courtenay and Powell River.
The Cuore players, all based in Vienna, Austria, are bent on familiarizing international audiences with little-known composers from their native Poland. At their High Beam Dreams concert, the group will start by highlighting pieces from their debut album (titled Never the Same Way Twice, it was released last month), then perform a piano trio by Franciszek Lessel, a 19th-century pianist and composer from Warsaw.
“We come from Poland and we perform a lot of Polish music of course, but not Frederic Chopin only,” said Budzyńska. “We perform a lot of unknown composers that were either less fortunate or for some reason their music got lost or forgotten.”
Cuore’s album content and concert numbers reflect the group’s appetite for unconventional material. Their Gibsons lineup includes a crossover selection by contemporary American composer Paul Schoenfield, who fuses folk and classical music, and legendary tango arranger Astor Piazzolla’s The Four Seasons of Buenos Aires.
“It’s always a pleasure to perform it because you can actually feel the audience reacting to it,” said Roguska. “People are really attentive because they don’t really expect to experience this kind of thing during a classical music concert.”
Even the trio’s accolades have an international flavour. In the past two years, they have received top honours at competitions in Germany, France, Canada, Singapore and Italy. Through his scholarly work, pianist Ogryzek has explored the strengths of Japanese, Russian and Polish approaches to musical education for children.
“It doesn’t matter if they play Chopin or Frank Sinatra,” said Ogryzek. “The thing is, I want to put fire into their hearts, and help them keep this fire.”
The Cuore trio will perform at High Beam Dreams in Gibsons on March 9 at 2 p.m. Tickets ($35) are available online at highbeamdreams.com and include a slice of cheesecake.
