Trio Isimsiz

Chamber Ensemble

"...a piano trio that already has that vital combination of unanimity of ensemble and musicianship, plus plenty of individual character and vitality."

Andrew McGregor, BBC Radio 3

"The real highlight of this year’s festival were the performances of the Trio Isimsiz…well-matched players who demonstrated exquisite ensemble playing in their performances."

IOCO - Kultur im Netz

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Pablo Hernán Benedí - violin
Edvard Pogossian
- cello
Erdem Misirlioglu
- piano

Formed in 2009 at the Guildhall School of Music & Drama, in 2015 the Trio Isimsiz won 1st Prize and the Audience Prize at the Trondheim Competition, and in 2017 2nd Prize at the Haydn Competition in Vienna. The Trio was selected for representation by Young Classical Artists Trust (YCAT) between 2013 and 2018, and in February 2018 won a Borletti-Buitoni Trust Fellowship Award.

The Trio performs widely in Europe, with highlights including recitals at the Trondheim, Stavanger, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, and Peasmarsh Festivals (broadcast by BBC Radio 3), the Kölner Philharmonie, Tivoli Concert Hall, Théâtre des Abbesses in Paris, Fundación Juan March in Madrid and Marianischer-Saal in Lucerne. Further afield, they have toured in China and Argentina.

The Trio Isimsiz are currently Fellows at the Guildhall School of Music & Drama. They have collaborated with Anthony Marwood, Krysztof Chorzelski, Richard Lester and Aleksander Madzar and attended IMS Prussia Cove working with Ferenc Rados.

Recent highlights include performances at Wigmore Hall, Jersey Arts Centre, the Beethoven-Haus Bonn, Aldeburgh Festival’s Schubertiade, the Sage Gateshead, Kettle’s Yard Cambridge, and Hannover Chamber Music Society and Ettlingen Schlosskonzerte, broadcast on SWR Radio. They made their debut with the Philharmonia Orchestra in May 2019, performing Beethoven’s Triple Concerto at the Brighton Festival. Following their debut recording of Brahms, Takemitsu and Beethoven, they released their second disc for Rubicon of works by Fauré, Schubert and Brahms in September 2020. The disc was warmly described by The Strad as "an eagerly anticipated follow up to an impressive debut... it fully meets the high bar set by its predecessor, seamlessly picking up the latter's threads of softly measured romance and taut poise".

Recent invitations include Wigmore Hall in London, L'Auditori in Barcelona, the Heidelberger Frühling Festival, Beethovenhaus Bonn, and the Hannover Chamber Music Society. In January 2022, the Trio gave the world premiere of Francisco Coll's new piano trio at Centro Nacional de Difusión Musical in Madrid in which the "prodigious" Trio "shone" according to Spanish national newspaper El País. Further highlights include the Trio's return to the Aldeburgh Festival for the UK premiere of Coll's piano trio, and the recording of their third album with Rubicon Classics.


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Francisco Coll premiere

Centro Nacional de Difusión Musical, Madrid. January 2022

The prodigious Trio Isimsiz shines at its concert in Madrid. The verve of the prodigious young group... unleashes the vigor of Shostakovich's compositions...The concert offers several impressions, the first, of the great quality of the Trio, who succeeded in all of the tests of such a demanding programme.

El Pais

Fauré, Schubert, Brahms

Rubicon Classics RCD1048; Sept 2020

Eagerly anticipated follow up to an impressive debut... it fully meets the high bar set by its predecessor, seamlessly picking up the latter's threads of softly measured romance and taut poise...

[the Trio Isimsiz] nails with aplomb Fauré's Trio: vibrato employed with clean restraint; climaxes coming as true releases but measuredly so, always gliding onwards with smoothly weightless urgency; nothing overblown; tautness and flow reigning supreme...

Delicate languor comes beautifully into play for the single-movement Schubert Adagio of 1827, via sensitively judged rubato, lucid textures, and more clean, vibrato-light playing from the strings...

Finally, the 1889 revised version of Brahms’s Trio no.1 in B major is presented in a reading serving as a worthy successor to the debut album’s superb Trio no.3, pulling us in from the get-go to Brahms’s intense world of passionate emotion tempered by poised Classicism, confidence and joy tempered by fragility and doubt. It’s a reading to lose yourself in, whether in the ardent sweetness and power of their forte singing, or in the myriad different qualities of silence that they serve. We can only hope that a third album eventually arrives with Brahms no.2.

Charlotte Gardner, The Strad

Schubert 1828, Aldeburgh Festival

Snape Maltings, June 2019

The recital’s centrepiece was the E-flat Piano Trio, D929, given an understated account by Trio Isimsiz, whose restraint beautifully captured the work’s intimacies, Pablo Hernán Benedí (violin) and Michael Petrov (cello) responding expressively to its many confessional-style exchanges and both smoothly integrated with Erdem Misirlioglu (piano). The expansive first movement and discursive Finale held the attention, but it was the rage and resignation of the Andante (and the humour of the Scherzo) that gripped.

David Truslove, Classical Source

The centrepiece in 1828 was the Eb piano trio which in 2019 opened the second half. The highly accomplished Trio Isimsiz had all the notes and more; delicious pianissimos, engaging rhythms and a work that can seem over long never did.

Gareth Jones, East Anglian Daily Times

Beethoven's Triple Concerto with the Philharmonia Orchestra

Brighton Festival, May 2019

Cellist Michael Petrov and Pablo Hernán Benedi on violin were, as expected, in total alert accord in their melodic and passage work together, and the awaiting power was obvious when joined by the piano. Benedi has a subtle characteristic style, sometimes understated, sometimes delivering familiar passages seasoned with the freedom of a street fiddler and imparting that welcome sense of spontaneous newness.

Richard Amey, Brighton & Hove Independent

Ettlingen Schlosskonzert

October 2018

An original programme and pure, sweeping energy... The Trio Isimsiz played with emphasis, fiery Espressivo and the highest concentration… [Beethoven’s Piano Trio No. 2 in E flat Major] was intense and powerful, with a rich palette of colour and expression.

Birgitta Schmid, Badische Neueste Nachrichten

Beautiful sonority and perfect synergy… ‘Isimsiz’ is Turkish for ‘indescribable, unnameable’ Trio Isimsiz, founded in 2009 at the Guildhall School, indeed had an indescribably beautiful sound.

Christine Gehringer, Pamina-Magazin.de

Beethoven, Brahms & Takemitsu: Piano Trios

Rubicon Classics (RCD1013), November 2017​

The Trio Isimsiz are punctilious...In the Isimsiz's hands, the melodic fragments [of Takemitsu's Between Tides] fit together like an exquisite mosaic...All in all, this is an outstanding debut disc by the Trio Isimsiz, whose unusually thoughtful interpretations are presented with dazzling technical mastery.

Andrew Farach-Colton, Gramophone

An impressive debut for the Trio, it's a piano trio that already has that vital combination of unanimity of ensemble and musicianship, plus plenty of individual character and vitality.

Andrew McGregor, BBC Radio 3 Record Review

This trio with no name is one to remember…Brahms’s Allegro kicks things off in knockout fashion, with a stylistic approach as taut as Brahms’s actual writing is concise. The players display crisply delineated articulation and sparingly employed vibrato/pedal, lending a clean, high-definition quality to the music’s turbulence. The Andante brings magic of a different character, violin and cello fused tenderly and playing with a less-is-more approach to expressivity, complemented by an often achingly soft and luminous keyboard touch from Misirlioglu… Another highlight is the ‘Ghost’ Trio’s Largo: a study in tension and dynamic control... Add the cleverly chosen central Takemitsu with its 20th-century timbral tricks, and it’s hard to know how Trio Isimsiz could have bettered such artistry and distinctiveness.

Charlotte Gardner, The Strad

The Trio Isimsiz is one to watch! They are a modern trio in the best sense of the word: they are noticeably in the know about true-to-original performance practices, while displaying an intuitive feel for contemporary music and a fresh perspective on 250 years of music history. This is a CD that is worth it, as three clever musicians unearth new ideas in old pieces.

Wibke Gerking, WDR 3 TonArt

Royal Welsh College of Music & Drama

February 2017

Though they may call themselves the Trio “without a name”, these three young musicians, by the sensitivity and intensity of their performances, are rapidly making a considerable name for themselves – a name likely to grow bigger yet.

Seen and Heard International

Festival de Stavanger, Norway

August 2016

Et une révélation : le Trio Isimsiz, formé en 2009 sur les bancs de la Guildhall School de Londres et distingué l'an passé au Concours international de Trondheim. L'Andante du Trio n°2 de Schubert, idéalement chanté, nous soufflait par le contrôle des timbres et la beauté des changements d'éclairage, entre murmure, exaltation et fatalisme

Diapason

The real highlight of this year’s festival were the performances of the Trio Isimsiz … they are well-matched players who demonstrated exquisite ensemble playing in their performances.   From the Trio Isimsiz we will certainly hear a lot in the future.

IOCO – Kultur im Netz

Newbury Spring Festival

May 2015

There was an excellent rapport between these artists ... passionate and so expressive … virtuosic playing from all the artists.

Newbury News

Brighton Dome

February 2014

Though they may call themselves the Trio “without a name”, these three young musicians, by the sensitivity and intensity of their performances, are rapidly making a considerable name for themselves – a name likely to grow bigger yet.

The Argus

The Schubert B flat trio is a glorious work and the Isimsiz did justice to it ... the slow movement achingly beautiful.

stringsattached.com

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