Contact Anthea Kreston

"... Anthea is a soloist of the Heifetz-Shaham-Vengerov caliber, whose musical instincts could make even a mere bagatelle thrill the soul and stir the senses to a frenzy." - San Diego Reader

• The Amelia Piano Trio
• Violin, viola      

With Connecticut College since 2003, Violinist Anthea Kreston has received numerous awards for her chamber collaborations including honors at the Melbourne and Banff International Competitions, the Grand Prize at the Concert Artists Guild Competition, and Top Prize in the Munich ARD International Chamber Music Competition.

She made her solo debut at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., and tours actively with her piano trio, The Amelia Piano Trio.

Anthea holds a B.A. in Women's Studies from Cleveland State University and a performance degree from the Curtis Institute of Music. She is a professor of violin and viola at the Hartt School of Music, where she received her Master's Degree, as well as at Wesleyan University. She has studied with Almita and Roland Vamos, Felix Galimir, Ida Kavafian, and Phil Setzer.

Anthea is actively involved with alternative music; she played in the Cleveland-based rock band Daria for several years, and frequently performs with her violin and percussion duo Sweet Thunder. Anthea can be heard on the labels Cedille Records, Channel Classics, Koch, and Traditional Crossroads.

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.