Robert H. Wood Great Artists Series to Present The Pasquier Trio

The Pasquier Trio will perform at Herkimer College on Friday, October 24 at 7:00 pm in the Sarkus Busch Theater, located in the Robert McLaughlin College Center. The performance is open to the public free of charge.

The three great French soloists who have comprised the Pasquier Trio for more than three decades have been united by their love of chamber music since they were students together at the National Conservatory of Music in Paris. Each graduated with top honors from the Conservatory — where they went on to hold important faculty positions – and rapidly established major solo careers. In the years since, they have toured extensively throughout Europe, the United States, and Canada. Currently at the peak of their individual careers, they are at the same time even more committed to the Trio, where they have the opportunity to simultaneously express their musical individuality and their total musical rapport.

The Trio was founded early in the 1940s by the Pasquier brothers’ father, the renowned cellist Etienne Pasquier (who premiered Olivier Messiaen’s famed Quatuor pour la Fin du Temps in a concentration camp in 1942 with Messiaen himself on piano) as well as their uncles, Jean and Pierre. Following the war, the two most well-known chamber ensembles in the United States were the Budapest String Quartet and the Pasquier Trio; in 1947 the Los Angeles Times opined that the Trio was “One of the very greatest music ensembles before the public today.” They commissioned over thirty new works by composers such as Schmitt, Ropartz, and Roussel and recorded most of the string trio repertoire.

The Pasquier Trio continues this legacy today by performing the rich string trio repertoire around the world. The Trio has collaborated with such renowned artists as pianists Jean-Claude Pennetier and Abdel Rahman El Bacha, the clarinetist Michael Portal, and the legendary flutist Jean-Pierre Rampal.

The Robert H. Wood Great Artists Series is a result of a generous endowment made to the Herkimer County College Foundation by the late Robert H. Wood, a long-time resident of Ilion, NY. For more information, go to www.herkimer.edu/greatartists or call the Herkimer County College Foundation office at 315-866-0300, ext. 8459.