Thursday 3rd March 2022 | 7:30pm
Curtis Auditorium, MTU Cork School of Music
The PRIZM Trio is a chamber group founded in 2017 by professional musicians who are committed to bringing live music and innovative programs to audiences in a new format – combining pieces with different combinations of instruments built around cultural connections: identity, self-expression and individual stories presented through the prism of music. The paths of the ensemble members crisscross many countries, and they bring their artistic experience as performers and educators to this partnership. They are all based in Cork and teach at the MTU Cork School of Music.
Tickets (only available through online booking below):
€20 (General Admission) | €15 (Concessions & COS standard members)
€10 (COS concessionary members) | €5 (Students)
Programme:
Joaquín Turina (1882-1949)
Piano Trio No. 1 in D major, Op. 35
Dmitri Shostakovich (1906-1975)
Piano Trio No. 1 in C minor, Op. 8
Claude Debussy (1862–1918)
Piano Trio in G major, L. 3
PRIZM Trio
Gabriela Mayer, piano
Maria Ryan, violin
Aoife Nic Athlaoich, cello
Gabriela Mayer is currently the Head of the Department of Keyboard Studies at the MTU Cork School of Music. Her early training was in her native Romania, as well as Italy and later the USA, where she won numerous awards and scholarships. As a recipient of a Fulbright Graduate Fellowship to Germany, Ms. Mayer studied piano performance at the Hochschule für Musik ‘Hanns Eisler’ in Berlin. She also completed a Doctorate in Musical Arts at the University of Maryland in the USA, graduating with the highest honours. In America, she taught at the American University in Washington DC and Smyths College in West Virginia. Since moving to Ireland, she has engaged in teaching as well as performing both solo and chamber music recitals. Collaborators have included string and wind players from the RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra, the Irish Chamber Orchestra and colleagues from the Cork School of Music. She has also performed with the Opus Pocus Trio, the Cork Wind Chamber Ensemble and with many emerging young soloists from Cork. She is currently also involved in activities of the Association of European Conservatoires (AEC) and European Piano Teachers Association (EPTA) through participation in seminars, giving presentations at conferences on pedagogical and performance topics and as an international representative of the AEC on institutional review panels. Her students have won prizes and awards in piano performance and chamber music competitions and many of the graduates she taught have secured professional careers and continue to be active as performers.
Award-winning Irish violinist Maria Ryan is currently based in Kilkenny after nearly a decade spent in London. Maria was the winner of the coveted Heineken Violin Competition in 2010. A keen chamber musician Maria has travelled throughout Europe and the USA, and South America to perform in various ensembles. In 2011 she toured the USA with Camerata Ireland including her first performance in Carnegie Hall. She has appeared as soloist with various orchestras, performing concertos of Mozart, Bach, Locatelli, and Vivaldi, the latter of which she performed as soloist and director of the Southbank Sinfonia in a concert of Vivaldi and Corelli in Anghiari Music Festival, Italy 2010. Most recently she performed the Beethoven Concerto in Kilkenny and Wexford with the Wexford Sinfonia in January 2013. She has also performed as soloist in Norway, and in Ireland with the Kilkenny Youth Orchestra.
Maria graduated with a Graduate Diplom from the Hochschule für Musik Köln in 2009, where she was in the class of Herr. Emilian Piedicuta. Prior to this, Maria graduated with a First Class M.A. in Performance from the Cork School of Music, where she was a student of Ms. Ruxandra Colan. She has worked numerous orchestras in the UK and Ireland including the RTE Concert Orchestra, the Ulster Orchestra, Camerata Ireland, the Irish Chamber Orchestra, City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra, and has also worked The Wexford Opera Festival Orchestra, Folkwang Kammerorchester Essen, the Düsseldorf Sinfoniker, she has lead orchestras under such prestigious conductors as Sir Charles Mackerras, Barry Wordsworth, and Carl Davis.
Dublin born Aoife Nic Athlaoich enjoys a versatile musical career, dividing her time between modern and Baroque cello. Since moving back to Ireland in 2013, Aoife joined the Irish Chamber Orchestra and has made solo and chamber music debuts at some of Ireland’s leading festivals including Galway Early Music Festival, Ardee Baroque Festival, Killaloe Chamber Music Festival and the East Cork Early Music Festival. Aoife is a member of the highly acclaimed Orchestre Revolutionaire et Romantique with whom she has toured the USA and Europe as well as performing at the BBC Proms. Aoife has performed with the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, la Serenissima, the Avison Ensemble, Irish Baroque Orchestra, Scottish Chamber Orchestra and Classical Opera Company. She was also a member of the London Mozart Players from 2010 – 2013.
Aoife has won prizes for solo and contemporary music performance at Feis Ceoil, Dublin, as well as being awarded a Belfast Classical Music Bursary in 2007 and wasawarded scholarships for her studies at the Royal Irish Academy of Music and at the Royal College of Music, London. Currently, Aoife is a cello lecturer at the MTU Cork School of Music and at the Irish World Academy of Music in the University of Limerick, and was also Artistic Director of the East Cork Early Music Festival.