Dear friends,
We hope you're all enjoying a wonderful Summer! We took a short trio break and have all been busy doing our different things, but are now looking forward to and getting ready for the new season.
First of all a quick review of the last couple of months: at the beginning of June we went on a very special visit to Prague. Not only did our concert take place in a wonderful location, the Maisel Synagogue, but also the days we spent together, wandering through the city, visiting the Jewish Quarter with the old Jewish cemetery and the Pinkas Synagogue with its walls covered in the names of the nearly 80,000 Jewish victims of the Holocaust from the former Czechoslovakia, made an unforgettable impression on us.
The day after our concert was just as moving: a visit and guided tour to the concentration camp Theresienstadt/ Terezín organised by the Jewish Museum in Prague. We were particularly affected by the Ghetto Museum with its rooms specially dedicated to the many artists who had been held prisoner there, one of which was reserved for the musicians including Gideon Klein and Hans Krása. Standing face to face with the handwritten manuscripts of their string trios which we have performed for so many years now, their last compositions written whilst in the camp which miraculously didn't get lost, was incredibly moving and brought us even closer to them. It was a beautiful and poignant conclusion to our project After the Darkness which we recorded four years ago. Not a definitive conclusion of course; we will carry on performing their music!
Our last two concerts before the Summer were both in The Hague, in the Kloosterkerk and the Haagse Kunstkring, and were a wonderful way to celebrate the end of the season!
Before long we'll be starting off a new and exciting season. We have lots of new ideas and plans which we'll let you know more about in our next newsletter. For now we'd like to let you know about our concerts planned for August and September.
*First of all, a reminder: on Sunday, 14 August at 3 p.m. we will perform a concert in Cratfield, Suffolk in the concert series Concerts at Cratfield. We'll be playing our programme (Hidden) Classics with music by Haydn, Smyth, Britton Smith and Beethoven. We hope to see many of our friends from England, especially those who used to come to our annual Cambridge concerts!
https://concertsatcratfield.org/concerts/hague-string-trio
*On Sunday, 28 August at 3 p.m. we will give a concert together with Ksenia Kouzmenko: our beautiful programme Czech Romance with piano quartets by Suk and Dvořák. The concert will take place in Dordrecht in the series Concert aan huis Dordrecht.
https://concertaanhuisdordrecht.nl/
*On Friday, 2 September at 8 p.m. we will finally get to play our postponed concert in the Gevleugelde Ezel in Poederoijen. Please reserve your tickets on time as the concert ticket includes a delicious buffet supper after. The programme is (Hidden) Classics (see above).
https://degevleugeldeezel.nl/volgend-concert/
*Then comes a weekend together with Pauline Oostenrijk: on the 17th and 18th September we will give concerts with oboe quartets by Elgar, Britten and Mozart and the string trio op. 9 no. 1 by Beethoven. First Saturday, 17 september at 8.30 p.m. in the Nicolaaskerk on the island of Vlieland and followed by Sunday, 18 september at 3.30 p.m. in the Laurentius church in Kimswerd.
https://nicolaaskerk-vlieland.nl/-/concertbijkaarslicht
http://www.laurentiuskerkkimswerd.nl/activiteiten/concerten
*This time closer to home: on Saturday afternoon, 24 september at 2 p.m. we will perform a 45 minute programme of music by women composers in the Huygens Festival in Voorburg. More information to follow on the website:
https://www.huygensfestival.nl/nl/programma/celebrating-women/date/81/2022-09-24/2022-09-24
*And finally: on 29 September we will once again play our Czech Romance programme with Ksenia Kouzmenko, this time in the concert series Veur Klassiek in the Dorpskerk in Leidschendam at 8.30 p.m.
https://veurklassiek.nl/concert/the-hague-string-trio-met-ksenia-kouzmenko/
We would love to see you at one of our concerts!
Best wishes from The Hague String Trio,
Justyna Briefjes, Julia Dinerstein and Miriam Kirby
https://www.thehaguestringtrio.com
https://www.facebook.com/TheHagueStringTrio
https://www.instagram.com/thehaguestringtrio/
https://twitter.com/HagueStringTrio