It's been another busy year for the Gould Trio and Rob since the 2011 Festival.

Immediately after the Festival last year Rob returned to Cardiff to start rehearsals for his Proms Concerto debut in Simon Holt's double concerto for clarinet and flugelhorn 'Centauromachy' in the Royal Albert Hall. It was thrilling to play in such a vast hall and the venue certainly added to the dramatic potential of this vivid piece.

Much of November was taken up with a tour of New Zealand with Alice, and pianist Sophia Rahman. It was a comprehensive
survey of both Islands, as far north as Auckland and as far south as Queenstown. Nine concerts in all, as well as two days adjudicating the Royal Over-Seas League Pettman Scholarship, which allows an outstanding New Zealand ensemble to come to the UK to study and perform. We're thrilled that this years winners, Estrella, a dazzling ensemble of 2 pianos, 8 hands, are able to join us in Corbridge this year.They blew the whole panel away in the scholarship competition...and I'm sure they'll have the same effect on our Corbridge audience.
The tour wasn't all hard work. Who could visit the outdoor adventure capital of the world (Queenstown) without indulging in a bit of white water rafting, or taking to the healing mud baths of Rotorua to ease post-concert tensions!

In the New Year Rob was delighted to give his first concert at the Sage, Gateshead with the Tippett Quartet. It was wonderful to see so many friends and, or course, Corbridge regulars.

By the time of the 2012 Festival Rob will also have toured China as soloist with the BBC National Orchestra of Wales in Mozart's Clarinet Concerto. With concerts in Beijing, Shanghai and Guanzhou this promises to be an eye-opening tour.

Rob's collaborations with the Gould Trio extend far beyond Corbridge. The third concert and subsequent live CD release of the Gould's Beethoven Trio series from St. George's, Bristol featured all four Corbridge regulars and was broadcast live on BBC Radio 3 on February 29th. We also recorded Josef Holbrooke's clarinet chamber music together. And there's a return visit to Florida's Sanibel Festival in the diary too...definately one to look forward to!



Hard to believe it is true, but the Gould Piano Trio is officially 20 years old this season. I say officially because actually it’s very hard to define when we actually began (does rehearsing in a little room during our first term at the Royal Academy of Music count? I decided not!). So researching back we decided our YCAT debut at the Wigmore Hall would be a good place to start. Of course this was nothing to do with the fact that anything before this would mean we had missed the 20th anniversary!
It has been very fitting then that this has particularly been a year about recordings. By the time our 2012 Corbridge festival comes around we will have recorded 4 Beethoven CDs and 2 Dvorak cds since we were last in Northumberland. Recording the Beethoven Trios has been a very interesting process as we decided that having played these pieces for many years now, that we would commit them to discs from LIVE concerts. As I write this we have but one more of these concerts/recordings to do, saving the Archduke for last. The lovely converted church of St. Georges, Bristol is the venue and we have very much enjoyed its’ fantastic acoustics. We were very happy to replace myself with Rob for the 2 clarinet pieces in the 3rd concert, the Opus 11 and the trio arrangement of the Septet by Beethoven. Totally different from spending three days in front of the microphone as in a normal recording session, the concert has to be the focus of the day, but the rehearsal has to be recorded so there is cover for any emergencies.

In October 2011 we had our first chamber music festival in the wonderful new hall at the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama. This festival For the Love of Brahms! was an intense two days of piano trios, quartets and quintets, sonatas, clarinet trio and quintet, string sextets and more and we and the staff at the RWCMD were delighted with how it went. The students were involved in masterclasses concerts and a sextet swapshop. The festival also had a glowing review in the guardian! We are already looking forward to the next festival, which is focusing on the works of Schubert and takes place from 19th to 21st October 2012.

Perhaps one of our highlights were 2 concerts at the Wigmore Hall performing the four Dvorak trios along with a Martinu trio and an arrangement of the Janacek string quartet “Kreutzer Sonata” for piano trio. The 2nd of these concerts was broadcast live on BBC radio 3. Not having any Janacek in the piano trio repertoire (he wrote one but was lost at some point) it was fantastic to be able to get inside this totally different language and style of music. A challenge (partly to make it live up to it’s string quartet other), but well worth it.

In May we are off to the Orpheus and Bacchus festival in Bordeaux. Many Hummel trios and hopefully much good wine! July sees the Goulds back at the Lake District Summer Music Festival before alighting at our favourite place of all, Corbridge! We hope to see you there!

Lucy