Concert Preview: Saguaro Trio, Auckland Town Hall

Saguaro Trio, (from left) Peter Myers, John Chen and Luanne Homzy. Photo / Supplied

For some years, New Zealanders have been following the offshore career of pianist John Chen, who is back in town next Friday, in concert with his Saguaro Trio.

The group's successes have been impressive, including first prize in the 2009 Hamburg International Chamber Music Competition. Chamber music, says Chen, has always been his first love.

"It was written for music lovers and wasn't designed to impress a wide circle. Because of this, it often contains a composer's most intimate utterances."

Chen and his Saguaro colleagues, violinist Luanne Homzy and cellist Peter Myers, are now based in Hamburg and, after five years in Los Angeles, he likes the lifestyle.

"I'm in a quarter of the city where Brahms used to live and there's even a Brahms museum on the same block," he says. "It's like a flashback to old Europe."

German audiences have a distinct cultural advantage in the concert hall. "The audiences are really steeped in the tradition. Even the ones who don't know anything about music, it's just ingrained into their consciousness. They have an innate appreciation of it."

Chen, Homzy and Myers met during their studies at LA's Colburn Conservatory, through their "mutual love of chamber music".

They make a closely knit team. "You get much more of a sense of growing together than you do with a bigger group like a piano quartet or quintet," Chen explains. And they are very serious about what they do. "We're all interested in searching as deeply as possible to find the best possible interpretation of the music," is the pianist's summing-up of their group strategy. On Friday, the Saguaros set off with a Trio by the splendidly named Johann Nepomuk Hummel.

"Some of Hummel's works are amazing," Chen enthuses. "And this G major Trio is one of them. I know a lot of people around the world who are starting a Hummel revival and I would gladly be part of it."

His description of the work as "charming" does not carry as much weight as the promise of "unexpected twists and turns". Surely though, I counter, those are what we expect from any music.

"Surprise is important otherwise everything becomes predictable" is the response, followed by a wry comment on Beethoven's music, startling in its time, now being less so. "You know exactly what kind of surprise he's about to spring."

Chen is enjoying a new work commissioned from young New Zealander Alwyn Westbrooke whom he has known since they both took part in what is now the New Zealand Community Trust Chamber Music Competition.

Westbrooke's title is downright eccentric - "?" or Why Gryphons Shouldn't Dance - and Chen catches its central paradox by explaining how Westbrooke "uses Latin American dance rhythms in a way that is so far from being Latin American.

"And using these rhythms in such a deliberately awkward way makes it a really challenging piece for us to play."

Friday's concert ends with Brahms' C major Trio and Chen likens its rich emotionalism to the composer's Second Piano Concerto.

The Saguaro Trio carried off a special Brahms Prize at the Hamburg International Chamber Music Competition and Chen sees this Trio as very much benefiting from the Saguaro approach.

"It is as if three people are piloting a ship. Sometimes we try and take it in subtly different directions and sometimes we go along with the flow. That's the spontaneity and the beauty of it all."

Performance

What: Saguaro Trio

Where and when: Auckland Town Hall, Friday at 8pm