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Hailed by critics as “a grand departure from the usual,” the Manhattan Piano Trio has quickly become one of the most creative, exciting, and dynamic young ensembles in the United States. Since its inception in 2004, the Trio has carved out a unique niche for itself by performing concerts in a much wider range of settings – from major concert halls around the country to new concert series in smaller towns. Recent seasons have brought the group to such venues as Alice Tully and Merkin Concert Halls in New York, the Ravinia Music Festival in Chicago, Pro Musica Detroit, the Clark Memorial Library at UCLA, and Arizona’s Chamber Music Sedona; in 2008, the Trio toured South Africa, playing recitals and orchestral collaborations in Pretoria, Cape Town, Johannesburg, Port Elizabeth and Durban. Alongside these engagements, the Trio has maintained its goal of encouraging new series to grow: this season, the Trio performs tours in smaller venues throughout Arkansas, Georgia, Florida, Oklahoma, and Texas, as well as regular concerts on both coasts. A review of a recent concert in Lagrange, Georgia praised the “musical maturity and sophistication consistent with the group’s national and international reputation.”
MPT has received frequent recognition in international competitions, capturing grand prize at the Plowman National Chamber Music Competition and at the Chamber Music Yellow Springs Competition; runner-up at the Chesapeake Chamber Music Competition; and the Australian Broadcasting Corporation Listeners’ Prize at the Melbourne International Chamber Music Competition.s
Passionate advocates of contemporary music, the Manhattan Piano Trio has worked closely with important living composers in performances of their music. The group recently performed Shiraz (2006), a piece by Behzad Ranjbaran, at Lincoln Center in a retrospective of music by Juilliard composers. The Trio is particularly devoted to bringing audiences lesser-known works of great composers from the former Soviet Union, carrying works by Arno Babadjanian and Arvo Pärt; it has frequently performed Shostakovich’s oft-overlooked first piano trio, and commissioned a piano trio version of his Jazz Suite No. 1 from their colleague Maria Nikishova.
The Manhattan Piano Trio is an ensemble that embodies, in the deepest sense, the borough that provides its namesake: these three musicians represent starkly different backgrounds, and yet connect on a fundamental level to enjoy making music together. Wayne Lee, violinist, is originally from San Francisco, California; the group’s cellist, Dmitry Kouzov, grew up in St. Petersburg, Russia; and Milana Strezeva, pianist, is a native of Chisinau, Moldova. Kouzov and Strezeva, along with the trio’s original violinist, Dmitry Lukin, formed the Manhattan Piano Trio in New York in 2004. Lee is the most recent addition to the ensemble, having joined midway through the 2008-2009 season. Lee, Kouzov, and Strezeva all completed graduate degrees at the Juilliard School, and the group still resides and performs regularly in Manhattan. Each member of the Trio is also a devoted teacher: Strezeva and Lee maintain private studios in New York, while Kouzov was recently appointed Assistant Professor of Cello at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
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