Leonore Piano Trio

The Leonore Piano Trio formed in 2012 when violinist Benjamin Nabarro, cellist Gemma Rosefield, and pianist Tim Horton, already experienced playing trios within the Ensemble 360 collective, decided to establish their own group after attracting attention for those earlier collaborations. From the outset the ensemble focused on repertory by overlooked Romantic composers while also exploring contemporary scores from time to time and maintaining a commitment to Beethoven’s chamber works. Early engagements quickly took the trio across the United Kingdom as well as to Italy, the Bergen International Festival in Norway, and New Zealand, where members coached emerging players in a program modeled on Venezuela’s La Sistema. Hyperion signed the group shortly after its founding, resulting in a 2014 release of Anton Arensky’s piano trios; later discs ventured further afield, including a 2018 survey of Johann Peter Pixis and, in 2016, a foray outside the Romantic sphere with music by David Matthews.

Festival appearances have included Denmark’s Odsherreds Kammermusikfestival, Music at Oxford, the Buxton Festival, and Lakeside Arts Centre Nottingham. The trio made its Wigmore Hall debut in London in 2016 and has since returned for additional concerts there, while separate Beethoven programs have been presented through Britain’s Music in the Round series. Outreach has remained central: the ensemble commissioned Rachel Leach to create a narrated piece for young listeners drawn from cellist Steven Isserlis’ book Why Beethoven Threw the Stew. By 2022 nine Hyperion albums had appeared, among them a collection of Woldemar Bargiel’s piano trios issued that year.