A note from the trio...

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Everyone has a story to tell, and artists do so with their creations. The works that we have chosen for this program were composed during significant events in the composers’ lives and have consequently become staples in the clarinet-violin-piano trio repertoire. Milhaud loved jazz, and this joyful work combines classical form with a little bit of his experimental jazz style. Khachaturian’s Trio was derived from Armenian and Uzbek folk music, and it was composed around the time of the Armenian Genocide. He composed it while he was in graduate school at the Moscow Conservatory and was deeply impacted by events in his homeland during the time. Soviet composer Dmitri Shostakovich’s dark humor comes through in this set of four waltzes, which reflect the civil unrest of the soviet union and Shostakovich’s desire to communicate this with the world. Bartok’s Contrasts was commissioned by jazz clarinetist Benny Goodman, but rather than jazz, it utilizes Hungarian and Romanian folk music. These works together have immense communicative power that shed light on human suffering while simultaneously offering hope for a brighter future.

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BIOGRAPHIES

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DR. LARKIN SANDERS, clarinet

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Dr. Larkin Sanders is a native of Branson, Missouri and currently lives in Kansas City, Missouri where she is the clarinet instructor at Washburn University, owns the Clever Clarinetist, performs with Xiphias Trio and other various ensembles, and is the Vice President of the American Single Reed Summit. Most notably, Larkin is the founder, executive artistic director, and is a clarinetist of the Taneycomo Festival Orchestra, a summer music festival in Branson, Missouri. Dr. Sanders is also a Woodwind Method Clinician for D'Addario & Co and is endorsed by Henri Selmer Paris, Silverstein Works, and Brian Corbin Clarinet Products. In addition to her activities as a clarinetist, teacher, and administrator, Dr. Sanders is also a composer and author of The Creation of the Taneycomo Festival Orchestra: The Performer’s Field Guide to Music Festival Foundation and The Clever Clarinetist’s Daily Scale Method: Scales and Exercises for Everyday Use.

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ERIK HASSELL, violin

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Erik Hassell is a freelance violinist in Kansas City where he performs with other local musicians and teaches all ages of violin and viola students. He earned his Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees from Mizzou while studying with Eva Szekely. Since moving back to KC, he has become a member of the Springfield Symphony Orchestra (MO) where he is Assistant Principal Second Violin and the Topeka Symphony Orchestra as a first violin member. He also performs with the Midwest Chamber Ensemble and Classical Revolution in KC as well as the Missouri Symphony Orchestra and Odyssey Chamber Ensemble in Columbia. 

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BRIDGET O'LEARY, piano

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Bridget O’Leary is active as a solo pianist, collaborator and educator. Hailing from Raleigh, North Carolina, she maintains a strong presence there as well as in her native Kansas City. Recent performance highlights include a solo recital at Kansas City’s Charlotte House Series, recitals with cellist Kirsten Jermé at Carol Woods and White Memorial Presbyterian in Raleigh, featured performance at the American Single Reed Summit with Xiphias Trio, and festival shows with her crossover quartet Fourscore. From 2015-2017 Bridget was a member of the pop orchestra My Brothers and Sisters and performed with the group at the 2015 South by Southwest festival in Austin, Texas and at major festivals and venues in the Midwest. Bridget has previously served as program coordinator of Classical Revolution KC, an organization of young musicians bringing classical music to unconventional spaces including restaurants and record stores. In 2016 she founded KC Young Musicians Roundtable, an outreach series that helps young musicians develop their professional careers and provides a support network for freelance musicians. She is also the founder of Fourscore, a classical crossover quartet bringing energetic arrangements of contemporary songs to the piano quartet ensemble. She earned her Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees from the UMKC Conservatory.