• The Amelia Piano Trio
• Piano    

In 1988, Japanese pianist Rieko Aizawa was brought to the attention of famed violinist Alexander Schneider on the recommendation of pianist Mitsuko Uchida. Schneider engaged her as a soloist with his Brandenburg Ensemble at the opening concerts of Tokyo's Casals Hall; later that year, Schneider presented Rieko in her U.S. debut concerts at the Kennedy Center and Carnegie Hall with his New York String Orchestra. The Washington Post celebrated her 1988 debut U.S. performance at Carnegie Hall and the Kennedy Center: "She played with a beautiful, limpid tone and a sense of characterization and cohesiveness that is unusual."

Since then Rieko has performed in solo and orchestral engagements throughout the U.S., Canada, and Europe, including Lincoln Center's Avery Fisher Hall, Boston's Symphony Hall, and Chicago's Orchestra Hall. Highlights of recent seasons include acclaimed performances with the New Japan Philharmonic under Seiji Ozawa, the English Chamber Orchestra under Heinz Holliger, the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra under Hugh Wolff, the St. Louis Symphony under David Loebel and, most recently, a wonderfully received performance with the Vienna Chamber Orchestra.

An avid chamber musician, Rieko has performed as a guest with string quartets including the Guarneri Quartet and has participated in festivals such as the Marlboro in Vermont and the Evian in France.

Rieko is a graduate of the Juilliard School and the Curtis Institute of Music, where she was the last pupil of Mieczyslaw Horszowski. She also studied with Seymour Lipkin and Peter Serkin. In 2005 Rieko's solo debut recording of Scriabin's and Shostakovich's "24 Preludes" was released by Altus in Japan.

She is managed by Diane Saldick.

Formed in 1999, the Amelia Piano Trio has already established a glowing international reputation. Called "remarkable" by Strings and "exemplary" by The Strad, the group has quickly become one of their generation's most sought-after ensembles. In its short history the Amelia has been Grand Prize-winner at the Yellow Springs National Competition and recipient of the prestigious ASCAP Award for Adventurous Programming.

In 2003 the Trio was asked by National Public Radio to be the Young Ensemble in Residence. This exciting week of live concerts and interviews put the Amelia firmly in the foreground of classical music in America, reaching an estimated 1.5 million listeners. Performing fifteen works that spanned the centuries, the Amelia forged a lasting relationship with NPR. In October 2006 the Trio will be featured on Chicago's WFMT in live broadcast performances of the complete Beethoven Trios.

The Amelia members have quickly made their mark as performers and commissioners of new music. Notably, Pulitzer Prize-winning composer John Harbison has written his first piano trio for the Amelia. Other commissions for the Amelia include Augusta Read Thomas' A Circle Around the Sun and Adam Silverman's Sturm. The Trio's next commissioning project is a new Triple Concerto being composed by Daren Hagen. The Amelia plans to premiere and perform this new piece with youth orchestras around the country.

The Trio has performed extensively in North America and abroad, including France, Italy, Panama, and the Caribbean. They have released CDs on the Cedille Records label, as well as on the world music label Traditional Crossroads. In addition, members of the Trio have toured North America and Central Asia with Yo-Yo Ma's Silk Road Project.

The Amelia Piano Trio is actively involved in arts education and dedicates a substantial amount of time to educational projects, master classes, and coaching children and adults. The Trio members are professors at the Hartt School of Music and Connecticut College. In addition to developing award-winning outreach programs, the Trio is in residence at the Green Lake Chamber Music Camp, where they teach gifted high school and college-aged students the art of chamber music.

View the music department site.