"Eroica's musicians...have the muscle to be purely dramatic and emotional, but here, they stand out for subtler reasons: all three players are soloists who have a lot to say, and every note, no matter how light, has some significance. Indeed, no voice ever fades into the background; rather, the instruments not featured in a particular passage assume the active stance of intelligent listeners, making comments on the main statement or, in some cases, quietly but compellingly pursuing their own trains of thought." —Anne Midgette, The New York Times

"Just as in their successful Carnegie Hall debut and smash-hit CD release, these women demonstrate that on musical merits they have earned their foothold on the very highest rung of the profession." —The Wall Street Journal

"Brahms' music has rarely sounded as sweet...real music worthy of the Eroica Trio's considerable gifts... The Trio proved particularly adept at responding to the score's emotional range, bringing a combination of rhythmic vitality and melodic grace to the opening movement, and shaping the finale with particular dramatic urgency." —Joshua Kosman, San Francisco Chronicle

"Forget the marketing hype, the Eroica Trio is the real thing... The thing that most impressed was the litheness of the group's ensemble... Each player in this group brings serious chops to the table, and the group has converted this currency to richer coin by assiduously studying one another's phrasing and tone." —The Boston Globe

"It was the sizzle of the musical ensemble that seduced listeners at the Orange County Performing Arts Center." —Susan Bliss, Los Angeles Times

"The Eroica Trio's EMI label debut features one of the best-ever recordings of Ravel's Piano Trio in a performance that shows off the group's wide range of color and expression." —USAToday

"It's been decades since this country has produced a chamber music organization with this much passion... This is a group that feasts on artistic and technical challenges." —The San Francisco Examiner

"They play chamber music for the concert hall. There is an edge of the seat intensity to every note they produce." —The New York Times

"The passionate, brilliant program catapulted the audience from its seats not once but twice for Beethoven's Triple Concerto. The excitement and intensity of the first movement ended with such a grand flourish that the audience was on its feet applauding loudly immediately after the last note. Although caught by surprise, the musicians took this spontaneous breach of concert etiquette in stride... The musicians responded beautifully with elegant, balanced sound that ranged from extraordinary pianissimo to full, controlled fortissimo. Their playing was precise yet dynamically expressive, with stunning contrasts... The synergy within the Trio and between them and the orchestra was superb." —Marilyn LaRocque,Las Vegas Sun

"The Eroica Trio gave a knockout concert at the Bovard Auditorium. These people have it all: technique, temperament, interpretive savvy, good looks and a winning stage presence." —Herbert Glass, Los Angeles Times

"The Eroica's unbridled passion flows from all voices at some point, regardless of the piece. This group maximizes drama inherent to any piece, whether it rests in melody, tempo, rhythm, texture or harmony." —Whitney Smith, Indianapolis Star

"The Trio plays with technical flair, raw driven energy and high spirits." —The Wall Street Journal

"In the Eroica's vivacious performance, the outer fast movements charged along with snappy pizzazz. The slow movement evoked New Age and jazz noodlings. The surfaces glittered... When the group paused to think more contemplatively...the interpretation became truly inspired. Those were memories to take home." —Charles Ward, Houston Chronicle

"The three young women played with a love of life that made the sorrows and troubles of Sweden seem distant for a while." —Svenska Dagblaget(Stockholm)

"The (ladies of the) Trio played as though they were caressing the music...the music sizzled." —Watanabe(Tokyo)

"Even on a purely visual level, one notices a special harmony between them... The musical result is balanced and sophisticated." —Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung(Germany)

"Everyone felt themselves transported to another world...the Trio's technical brilliance...was superb." —Die Presse (Vienna)

"The real treat is being able to savor the glorious melodies of these baroque masters in such rich-toned splendor -- and the result is ear-opening." —Andrew Farach-Colton, barnesandnoble.com

"The members of the Eroica Trio have a genuine passion for Brahms...a true love of the music as Brahms wrote it. Here they offer intelligent, well-thought-out performances, faithful to the score yet unafraid to interpret Brahms' intentions. This release is not just an excellent group of chamber musicians strutting their proverbial stuff, but a record designed to be a complete experience. The ensemble skillfully negotiates Brahms' turn-on-a-dime writing in a marvelously organic fashion; as with the best performances, they make it seem effortless." —Daniel Felsenfeld, Andante

"This is a hugely stirring recording, full of strength and soul. It's very romantic -- very lush -- but well within bounds (that is, Brahmsian bounds). Over the past several weeks, I have found it hard to stop listing to this CD." —Jay Nordlinger, National Review

"Eroica brings a joyous piano trio sound." —Ken Keuffel, The Arizona Daily Star

"The Eroicas are fiery, sexy and very polished when they are playing Astor Piazzolla... On their Baroque CD, the playing is polished, the tone is rich... Their Shostakovich is real Russian vodka: it's bitter, ironic and wild... The Dvorak Trio is a delightful piece, full of dance rhythms, melody and unexpected changes." —Ron Biss, Sunday Star Times (New Zealand)

"It's one thing to talk in general about performers who operate on the same wave length, and quite another to witness a virtuosic display of musical unanimity on the level of Saturday night's superb recital by the Eroica Trio...what proved most striking about the evening was how seamlessly the three performers merged their distinct contributions into a single ensemble voice." —Joshua Kosman, San Francisco Chronicle

"In the case of the frankly lovely, frankly female Eroica Trio, musical priorities are conspicuously high. The ladies brought power, grace and conversational ease to the joyful bombast of Beethoven's Triple Concerto." —Josef Woodard, Santa Barbara News-Press

"The Trio's brilliance leaves you in awe. The playing of this wonderful trio was so beautiful, so perfectly luminous, seeming to emerge from one soul: it deserved -- demanded -- almost religious awe. With refinement, passion, technical brilliance, precision and wonderful unanimity of spirit, this group exists in very rarefied company; these players have learned to breath the same air, to carry on phrases from each other with perfect accord in tone and dynamics...with infinite variety and luminosity." —Lindis Taylor, Dominion Post (New Zealand)

"The Eroica musicians form one of the most exciting groups on the classical stage... It is rare to see and hear musical intuition so tight. The audience demanded an encore." —John Sutherland, The Seattle Times

"The Eroica Trio gave a stunning performance all around, but its delivery of the Shostakovich Trio No. 2 in E Minor, Op. 67 was outstanding... The fact that the Eroica Trio included this (repertoire) in the program shows that not only do the musicians display a depth of musical maturity but that they also understand the power music has on people." —Christine Huggins, The Dartmouth

"This is a group which feasts on artistic and technical challenges... The Eroica brought wondrous empathy and discretion to the task, calibrating dynamics with heart-stopping mastery." —Allan Ulrich, San Francisco Examiner

"So locked in are they to the musical moment that at times they sound like one instrument making a single, ethereal sound. There were moments in the Beethoven piece when the two string players applied such incredibly light touches that the music almost seemed to resonate directly from the early 1800s, when Beethoven wrote the piece, rather than from their instruments." —Jim Lundstrum, The Post-Crescent

"This was a perfect concert... The Eroica Trio performed with incredible intensity and energy, one-ness in its music, a supple litheness in its tone, and an equality of voice. Each musician is an internationally recognized soloist in her own right, and this made for an extraordinary group dynamic. No one was subservient. No one was dominating. They each gave a fullness of dramatic expression to the music. The audience was ecstatic in its foot-stomping applause... The (ladies of the) Eroica Trio will always be my heroines." —Margaret Hennington, The Guardian (Australia)

"The Eroica musicians seemed to slip into their own world, accompanying each other lyrically and, it seemed, effortlessly." —Mary Kunz, Buffalo News

"The Eroica is one of the finest and most dynamic piano trios today... This performance was another remarkable example of the group's flawless ensemble playing and impeccable artistry. Its interpretation was sincere and thoughtful, impassioned and full of life." —Edward Reichel, Deseret News

"This was a magnificent performance! It was a delight to see the rapport among the players. Their music breathed a deep understanding of each other and the many different relationships that exist among them in the music. This was an exciting and very memorable concert. I, for one, was only too pleased to be in the audience." —Stephen Fisher, Evening Standard (New Zealand)

"Here's one of those wonderful CDs that you will love the first time you listen to it. Guaranteed. All six selections are truly enjoyable, the Trio's fresh intensity shining out of every note and phrase." —John Farnworth, The Register-Guard

"The Eroica Trio attracts new listeners to classical music. The musicians have much to offer listeners of all stripes." —Mark Kanny, Pittsburgh Tribune-Review

"The Trio performed the work with impeccable musicianship, flawless technique and irresistible enthusiasm." —Robert Fuller, Des Moines Register

"Nothing short of spectacular, nothing short of marvelous...the most exciting musicians on the classical scene today... To be part of the performance -- either as a member of the orchestra or the audience -- was extraordinary. To experience the composer's genius interpreted with such passion was a rare treat." —Jack Zaleski, The Forum

"The Eroica Trio was an inspired ensemble that received a well-earned standing ovation at the conclusion of the concert." —Marshall Turkin, The Palm Beach Post

"What proved most striking about the evening was how seamlessly the three performers merged their distinct contributions into a single ensemble voice... The Eroica's playing is marked, first of all, by exquisite beauty of tone, a rich blend of sonorities that gives even the most vigorous music a rounded edge. The group is unafraid of overt displays of feeling, whether ferocious or lyrical." —Joshua Kosman, San Francisco Chronicle

"What poured forth from the Jemison Concert Hall stage was beyond reproach. Three monumental works were presented by the reigning mavens of piano trio music...the ensemble delivered a balanced, meticulously controlled performance. In Beethoven's Trio in B-flat, Op. 11, every nuance exuded warmth. Melodies ebbed and flowed among the three players...with purpose and definition." —Michael Huebner, The Birmingham News

"The Trio's performance goes straight to the heart of the strings. The audience was treated to a display of dazzling musicianship. The entire performance was characterized by its technical excellence, artistry and energy. It is hoped that the Eroica Trio will return soon." —Jenny Burchell, The Tribune (New Zealand)

"The Eroica Trio lighted up the new Clark Music Center with its remarkable combination of uncanny technical precision, vibrant artistic interpretation, and an electrifying and exhilarating performance." —Nede Naque, The Laurence

"The Eroica's artistry is powerful enough that it could play the back of a cereal box and make it compelling." —Charleston Gazette

"Continuous dynamic flexibility is a hallmark of the group, but they the musicians live for the big moments." —Los Angeles Times

"They looked like supermodels and played like demons on crack... Rarely does one hear such a combination of sheer physicality, gripping intensity and idiomatic versatility as this threesome served up." —The Tucson Citizen

"The Trio brought its dark, rich sound and propulsive rhythmic energy to a crowd ready to cheer..." —The Star-Ledger (New Jersey)

"The women of the Eroica Trio play nothing halfway. Hair flying, bodies heaving, bows shedding hairs left and right...the Eroica achieved gestures of orchestral power and sweep." —The Washington Post

"Each musician possesses a superbly fluid technique... Their technical freedom is of the kind that makes the difficult seem easy and their seamless ensemble a matter of course." —The Albuquerque Journal

"These people have it all: technique, temperament, interpretive savvy, good looks and a winning stage presence." —Los Angeles Times

"(The Eroica Trio) plays with refinement, passion, spontaneity, imagination and the fullest grasp of stylistic nuances." —Chicago Sun-Times

"The Eroica took the listener on a sensitively guided odyssey that grew on you bit by bit." —The Arizona Daily Star

"Eroica Trio is the real thing...It is, thankfully, exactly what a chamber music ensemble should be -- (composed of) thoughtful, intelligent, rigorously trained musicians in love with the art of music and the artfulness of performance... The Trio performs spectacularly." —Michael Manning, The Boston Globe

"Eroica brings the audience to its feet. Following an extended standing ovation, the Eroica Trio performed a beautiful, sensual encore that had the standing-room-only crowd applauding enthusiastically again. Indeed, if the Trio had decided to play all night, the audience would have stayed." —Jack Zaleski, The Forum

By STEVE SMITH
The New York Times
Monday, November 8, 2010

As if anticipating the earlier encroachment of darkness brought on by clocks turned back for the season, some of New York's concert halls have come aglow in a metaphorical sense. Spiritual illumination is the express concern of the White Light Festival at Lincoln Center, which continues through next week. And at the Rubin Museum of Art, a new chamber-music series bears a similarly luminous banner: Resonating Light.

The museum, a splendid collection of Himalayan art in Chelsea, is not new to the concert business. In two previously established series — Naked Soul, focused on prominent singer-songwriters, and Harlem in the Himalayas, devoted to jazz musicians — participants are invited to tour the museum in advance, then present all-acoustic concerts inspired by the exhibitions.

That practice continues in the new series, named for a quotation attributed to Robert Schumann: "Music is nothing more than resonating light." When the Eroica Trio performed in the museum's intimate theater on Sunday evening, selected visual works were projected behind the stage. Elliott Forrest, the WQXR Radio personality who programs and hosts the series, questioned the performers about the music and the corresponding art in an onstage interview during the concert.

As the trio played Messiaen's "Quartet for the End of Time," with the clarinetist Richard Stoltzman, "Lotus," a glass etching by Sanford Biggers meant to evoke colonial-era slave ships, came into view slowly behind the musicians. The connection, the cellist Sara Sant'Ambrogio explained during the interview, was that Messiaen wrote his work as a prisoner in a German internment camp during World War II.

Messiaen's loving paean to his God, fashioned under circumstances of considerable misery, is a miracle of the repertory, and the performers treated it as such. If Mr. Stoltzman's technique is no longer as easeful as it once was, penetrating insights born of firsthand advice from Messiaen and decades of experience still made his a sovereign interpretation.

Ms. Sant'Ambrogio seemed nearly swept away by emotion during a heavenly account of the fifth movement, "Louange à l'Éternité de Jésus." The violinist Susie Park and the pianist Erika Nickrenz were focused and fluent throughout.

After the interview the concert continued with a poised rendition of the Aria from Villa-Lobos's "Bachianas Brasileiras" No. 5, elegantly arranged by Raimundo Penaforte. An appropriately effusive account of Schumann's Piano Trio in F included especially haunting playing by Ms. Park. In both, the visual pairings were less potent; still, fine playing was its own reward. And Benjamin Godard's "Berceuse de Jocelyn," an encore, provided its own gentle luminescence.

The Resonating Light series will next feature St. Luke's Chamber Ensemble in Peter Lieberson's "King Gesar" on Nov. 20 and 21, Rubin Museum of Art, 150 West 17th Street, Chelsea; (212) 620-5000, Ext. 344, rmanyc.org.

By PATRICK RUCKER
Fanfare Magazine
Wednesday, April 21, 2010

Rarely does one of the scores of CDs that cross my desk for review each year give me goose flesh from first track to last. But this new EMI release of pianist Erika Nickrenz, violinist Susie Park, and cellist Sara Sant’Ambrogio, aka the Eroica Trio, is one of those. If you’re a chamber music fan but have managed somehow to miss the Eroica (this is but the latest of a series of their recordings for EMI) run, don’t walk, to wherever it is you buy recordings and grab this one. And don’t be put off by the packaging. The graphics, design, and overall presentation, not to mention the smart good looks of the musicians themselves, aren’t what you’d expect to encounter on a CD of classical chamber music. Some of my colleagues have been turned off by the put-together look of the ensemble. Others have found Eroica’s performances too extroverted. (Imagine that: too much extroversion in a field all too prone to relentlessly serious, predictable, business-as-usual performances!) Never mind. What you’ll find inside the unusual packaging is some of the freshest, most daring, drop-dead gorgeous playing by this combination of instruments you’re likely to encounter any time soon.

If I’m not mistaken, this is the first of Eroica’s recordings to feature violinist Susie Park, who joined the ensemble in 2006, replacing Adela Peña. It’s clear, however, that by the time these pieces were recorded (in September 2007 and June 2008) that the new configuration had thoroughly coalesced. In fact, the ensemble cohesion and unanimity of purpose in these rhythmically daunting scores is breathtaking. And their sound? You’re almost unaware of the ensemble’s having “a sound”; these musicians are so inside their material, so identified with each singing line, and intensely invested in every rhythmical gesture that sound and utterance are inseparable.

Sant’Ambrogio and Park take an almost wicked delight in sassy glisses, and both hit their pitch-perfect harmonics with the nonchalance of experienced aerialists. It’s very audacious playing, but never ostentatious or cheap: here audacity’s function is serving the musical affect. In Kenji Bunch’s resourceful and suave Porgy and Bess Fantasy, Park’s feathery vibrato descant over Sant’Ambrogio’s full-throated spinning out of “Summertime” could melt the hardest heart. Later both the strings get way down in “It Ain’t Necessarily So,” only to soar again in “Bess, You Is My Woman Now,” held aloft by Nickrenz’s filigreed figurations. The Brazilian-born New Yorker, Raimundo Penaforte, whose music was featured on the Eroica disc “Pasión,” is the arranger of the West Side Story Suite, an alternately brilliant and subtle tour de force. Three separate movements run the gamut, from a riotously funny “I Feel Pretty,” through the hushed ardor of “Somewhere,” to conclude with a setting of “America” that amounts to a mini piano concerto, its kaleidoscopic effects tossed off by Nickrenz as though it were her daily warm-up. At 29 minutes, Mark O’Connor’s Trio No. 1, subtitled “Poets and Prophets,” is the longest and most challenging of the offerings. Its four varied movements pay homage to Johnny Cash, shifting the scene from Gershwin’s and Bernstein’s Broadway to the American heartland. In the touching slow movement, “My June,” Nickrenz draws organ-like sonorities from her Steinway, around which Park and Sant’Ambrogio weave melodic tendrils of nearly unbearable poignancy.

All of this, and more than I have room to describe here, was expertly captured by the engineers in the Recital Hall at SUNY Purchase. Composer David Felsenfeld contributed the most inviting liner notes I’ve seen in a long time. Try it. You’ll like it—a lot!

By JESSICA COURTIER
Special to 77 Square
Friday, March 12, 2010

The joy of the Eroica Trio's recital at the Wisconsin Union Theater was its handling of drama. Perhaps the program was inherently dramatic: it started with Beethoven (and when is Beethoven not dramatic?), continued with a Joan Tower composition depicting the struggles of a nephew with a terminal illness, and closed with a Dvorak trio in which each movement is a study in contrast between slow and fast sections.

It's a program that might invite overkill, turning tenderness into schmaltz or overwhelming the listener with big gestures. However, the Eroica Trio communicated care and sophistication in its musical choices as it built connections between each of the emotional spaces it explored.

Beethoven's third piano trio has lovely moments for all three performers, but it favors the pianist with occasions to shine as the ensemble leader. In the first movement, pianist Erika Nickrenz took several brief solo piano passages as opportunities to explore a performative flexibility that's harder to come by in group playing. She pushed and pulled the tempo, wringing a sense of wistfulness out of the melodic material. In the third movement, a minuet and trio, she rendered a series of quickly descending runs with great wit, reminding me that musical relationships in late eighteenth-century chamber music were often understood as analogues to social relationships.

The prioritization of pianistic expression in the Beethoven gave extra weight to an unprecedented violin solo in the finale, which Susie Park performed with a rich, singing quality.

The Tower trio, "For Daniel" (2004), was wrenching and gorgeous. It opened with a series of phrases in which the strings enter in unison but slipped into asynchronous pulses and dissonant harmonies to devastating effect.

As the piece shifted between the meditative and the furious, each musician had moments that were specially her own. Cellist Sara Sant'Ambrogio performed an intense solo that seemed to convey the suffering subject of the composition. Later, pianist Nickrenz poured forth a huge outburst. In several places Park had long melodies with a glassy, almost brittle feeling that came from the use of high harmonics.

The final piece of the evening, Dvorak's fourth piano trio, is structured on the idea of dramatic contrast. Each movement is based on the dumka (dumky is the plural form), an eastern European musical form that alternates slow and fast sections. Here again the Eroica Trio showed a masterful control of a wide range of expressive content.

The slow opening of the second movement, for example, starts with pulsing in the piano and a restrained melody in the cello, to which the violin inserts brief responses. The ensemble slowly builds in force until suddenly the violin offers a lively, turning, ornamented melody. Throughout this movement and the others, the Eroica Trio deftly shifted between a sense of restraint, full-bore Romanticism, and a springing, even somewhat improvisatory quality that characterized the fast sections.

The only part of the performance that felt a bit flat was the second movement of the Beethoven trio. The movement's theme is simple but the variations go to some unexpected places and I would have liked the ensemble to have pursued that diversity more thoroughly.

Overall, though, the Eroica Trio made this music make sense. It was integral, whole, and alive. Their performance invited identification with the ideas it expressed, and that sense of proximity and connectedness is what can make chamber music so special.

IF YOU GO

The Eroica Trio will be performing with the UW-Madison Chamber Orchestra at the Wisconsin Union Theater on Saturday, March 13 at 8pm. General admission tickets are $10 and $5 for UW-Madison students. For more information visit. http://www.uniontheater.wisc.edu or call 608.265.2787.

By GAYLE WILLIAMS
Herald Tribune Review
Tuesday, February 16, 2010

There are certain qualities that one looks for in a chamber ensemble. Of course, we demand full technical command, impeccable intonation, expressive dynamics, exact rhythms and musical interpretation. However, when we are lucky, we encounter an ensemble such as the Eroica Trio that offers all of the above in full measure with an extra dose of that sublime something.

We felt it first in their performance of Beethoven’s Piano Trio in C Minor, Op. 1, No. 3. With tremendous fluidity, their phrases flowed one to the other and the passing of lines was absolutely smooth. It’s as if the musicians complete each other’s thoughts, and sigh each other’s sighs as they dovetail note to note.

Pressing with some urgency, as Beethoven often requests, violinist Susie Park and cellist Sara Sant’Ambrogio dug in with some ferocity at times and turned to a delicate touch just as easily. Pianist Erika Nickrenz brought particular dazzle and clarity to the keyboard with delightful cascading scales.

Joan Tower’s Trio for David, written for her nephew after a long illness and death, is easily identified as an elegy. The long aching dissonances between violin and cello are soothed by the piano and the conversation goes from there to recreate the inner conflict and complex dance of feelings of loss, grief, release and redemption one feels upon the death of a loved one. Perhaps because of the universality and depth of emotion and thanks to the seamless interpretation by the musicians, most in the audience lost themselves in the music as it touched many a heart.

The concluding performance of Brahms’ Piano Trio in B Major, Op. 8 clearly carried the ghost of the composer’s mentor, Robert Schumann, while reminding us of Brahms’ genius even in his earliest works. Happily, the Eroica Trio showed its genius as well in all the subtleties and nuances.

By ALAN BECKER
South Florida Classical Review
Sunday, February 7, 2010

Dvorak’s Piano Trio No. 4 in E minor remains one of his most celebrated chamber works. Titled the “Dumky,” because of its use of several Dumka—-folksongs alternating happy, sad, fast and slow passages—it became a very personal statement through the Czech composer’s retooling of populist material. While performed frequently, in the hands of sympathetic players the Dumky Trio never fails to sound freshly minted.

The Eroica Trio was fully convincing in its lively, moving performance of Dvorak’s trio on a rare Saturday night event for Sunday Afternoons of Music, playing to a nearly full house at Gusman Concert Hall. The Eroica members effectively handled the contrasting moods and tempo shifts and succeeded in giving an improvisatory feeling to the four movements, with judicious use of string portamento (sliding between notes) for expressive effect. The large audience did, however, have trouble recognizing the proper time for applause amongst all of Dvorak’s varied tempo changes.

Gaspard Cassado was a noted Spanish cellist and student of Pablo Casals. Less known is his activities as a composer. His melodic Piano Trio in G minor is a rich amalgam of Spanish nationalism and Impressionism, in the vein of Granados and Turina, leavened with a touch of de Falla and Ravel. Both strings are required to perform glissandi and play at the extremes of range and volume (up to a sextuple forte). These modernisms clearly place it in its 1926 period, yet add color and excitement to a work of lush textures and vibrant, at times, acidic bite.

Pianist Erika Nickrenz made the most of her opportunities for virtuosic display, and the unison string playing of violinist Susie Park and cellist Sara Sant’Ambrogio was remarkable in its refinement and accuracy. As one would expect, the cello role is prominent, and was richly projected by Sant’Ambrogio, but Park’s clear, incisive violin playing made fine impact as well.