Zebra Trio is a meeting of three musicians – Ernst Kovacic, Steven Dann, and Anssi Karttunen – each bringing a vast experience in chamber music and working with living composers to the world of string trio. The Zebra Trio has always wanted to unite known masterpieces with new works and transcriptions, combining all of these in creative ways in their concerts.
Kaija Saariaho, Friedrich Cerha, Rolf Wallin, Miroslav Srnka, and Pablo Ortiz are composers who have been inspired by the Zebra Trio. Cloud Trio, Zebra Trio, Sway, The Tree of Heaven, and …and all the phonies go made with joy are among their titles.
Many classic masterpieces have now become string trios in the hands of the Zebra Trio – Schumann’s Album für die Jugend, Brahms’s Handel Variations, Kurt Weill’s Tango Ballade, Angel Villoldo’s El Choclo, and Thelonius Monk’s Criss Cross.
Zebra Trio has performed on the shores of the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, around the Baltic and Mediterranean seas, by the Great Lakes, and along some important river systems – the Danube, the Rhein, and the Seine.
The latest new trio that the Zebra Trio introduced to the repertoire – so marked by Arnold Schoenberg’s masterpiece – is by the Norwegian composer Asbjørn Schaathun, entitled Schönberg…est mort. The world premiere was in March 2017 at the Arnold Schönberg Institute in Vienna.
