Chamber Music Tulsa: AYA Piano Trio
Tulsa Performing Arts Center
September 28, 2025
My favorite sound is the small string ensemble: One or two violins, a cello, maybe a viola, with the occasional clarinet or piano joining in for a change of scenery. I love the spare texture, the peace of knowing each musician will hold their note exactly the right length of time, the wordless communication between performers. I love how the cello grounds us harmonically and propels us rhythmically at the same time. I love how a violinist will break my heart with the perfect vibrato, how the viola will chug away patiently in the background until they gift us with an unexpected, impeccable solo. When there is a piano involved, I, as a fellow pianist, feel the burden of knowing they are responsible for setting the pace and must abandon their desire to be the star of the show (pianists are an egotistical bunch), lending the music a thicker timbre and even more interpretive possibilities.
I’ve attended chamber music concerts for decades, in places I’ve lived or visited. Starting in Abilene, then in Ann Arbor, then in San Jose, Vienna, and Paris, I’ve luxuriated in my favorite sound.
Chamber Music Tulsa puts our city on par with any of those other locales. The organization brings in chamber groups from all over the world, musicians who have devoted their lives to their art, consummate professionals who never disappoint. Years of practice and preparation, both alone and as an ensemble, go into each performance.
I invited my friend Susan to Sunday’s concert of the AYA Piano Trio, formed in 2013 when its members were students at Curtis Institute of Music. Susan is more of a Struts fan than a chamber music fan, but she took a chance on me, put on a cute outfit, and showed up. Susan is one of the leaders of Indivisible Tulsa County, and was exhausted from fighting fascism all week. All month, actually. Okay, the better part of a year. I hoped chamber music would get her mind off her duties and let her experience something new.
So imagine my surprise when I arrived at TPAC’s Williams Theater Sunday afternoon and learned that the AYA Piano Trio had lost its pianist on Thursday, replaced her with some other dude, and whipped together a totally new concert.
“It’ll be fine,” I told Susan, fanning myself with the hastily-printed program insert listing the new music. “This happens all the time. They know tons of music and can adjust to any upset.” I hoped I was telling the truth. The missing pianist had recommended the replacement pianist when the former got stuck in Milan with passport issues. She knew him. It would be fine. Fine.
And it was. It was more than fine, in fact. It was divine.
The violinist and cellist, sans pianist, opened the program with five pieces by early 20th-century composer Reinhold Glière. Even though there were only two instruments, there was texture and vivacity to spare. Next, the pinch-hitting pianist joined them for Arvo Pärt’s “Mozart-Adagio,” which sounds like if Mozart were reincarnated in a snowy field somewhere in Scandinavia, doing meditation. Dreamy.
Debussy’s Trio in G Major rounded out the first half. Scott Gregory, who gave the pre-concert talk, later told me Debussy wrote this piece when he was 18 (what were you doing when you were 18?) and it was lost until the 1980s. It sounds more like late Romantic-era music than Impressionist, and if you do nothing else today, go listen to the third movement. You’ll hear my favorite sound.
The pianist opened the second half of the program with three Chopin Études. This was a real treat because 1) those études are really hard and you don’t hear them performed live often, 2) solo music isn’t generally programmed at chamber concerts, and 3) the replacement pianist was an adorable guy with sparkling technique and an amazing head of curly black hair.
The trio finished the concert with Mendelssohn’s Trio in C Minor, a giant work in piano trio literature. They stuck together like tango dancers, weaving their lines in and out with nuance and flair. If I hadn’t known about the last-minute pianist substitution, I never would have suspected.
After the concert, Scott Gregory and I geeked out in person and then via email about these young musicians, their talent and flexibility. He particularly enjoyed the Debussy, which he thought was “wonderfully nuanced and well-paced. The music felt spirited yet grounded, delicate yet confident,” he told me, “for example, at the outset of the charming second movement, where the pizzicato of both stringed instruments danced playfully with the block chords from the piano. It was sort of like the more mature Debussy was peeking through, just for a moment. And this trio of musicians rendered that moment, and so many others, so beautifully and engagingly. Fantastic stuff!”
As for my friend Susan—at the other end of the chamber music expertise spectrum—she had a million questions about the concert. What are all these Italian words? Why can’t we clap whenever we want to? Why is the violinist wearing a burgundy bustier instead of all black like the others? I answered her questions as best I could, happy to go full classical music nerd. As we walked to our cars after the show, she looked at the cloudless blue sky, stretched her shoulders back, and told me it had been a lovely concert, just what she needed.
Mission accomplished. I sent her back to saving democracy with clear eyes and hope for the future.
So who’s next? Maybe you’ve been converted by my exuberant concert review and would like to give chamber music a try, but you’re daunted by the unknown? Or maybe you’ve been thinking of asking out that classical-music loving cutie you met at that thing? Or maybe you just want to try something new? Here are my tips for getting started.
- Go to Chamber Music Tulsa and peruse the upcoming concerts. October features some terrific shows with the Isidore String Quartet.
- Choose your concert. I love the Friday evening concerts because they are usually in cool venues like LowDown or the Lynn Riggs Theatre in the Dennis R. Neill Equality Center, and there are hors d'oeuvres and wine. Saturday concerts take place in the TPAC’s Westby Pavilion, with buffet dinner included, and Sunday’s concerts are in TPAC’s Williams Theatre (sorry, no food there, but downtown is rife with food offerings so you can still make a date out of one parking place.)
- Make a playlist of the music that’ll be played at your concert and listen to it before you go. Chamber music is notoriously complex, but with multiple listenings you’ll start to pick out familiar melodies. This will make the concert much more enjoyable, since you’ll be seeing an old friend instead of having a meet-and-greet with a stranger.
- Look up any new vocab on the program as you’re listening to the recording. Susan almost bailed on Sunday’s program when she saw the words Scherzo: Molto allegro quasi presto. You can avoid that by learning stuff beforehand. It’s usually just a description of the music’s speed and mood.
- Put on your cool outfit (no need to be fancy), pick up that cutie (though it’s also really satisfying to go alone), and enjoy the show.
