Trio for oboe, bassoon and piano

Partial premiere (mvmts 1, 3 and 4): 9 June 2012

Oboe Rose Riddell
Bassoon Eve Kim
Piano Jillin Yan

Raye Freedman Arts Centre, Auckland

Professional premiere: 15 May 2013

Oboe Madeleine Sakofsky
Bassoon Ben Hoadley
Piano Emma Sayers

St Andrew’s on the Terrace, Wellington

Programme Note

This piece was composed in 2011 after attending a schools’ chamber music competition in Auckland. It was noticeable that the lack of repertoire for some instruments and combinations made it very difficult to programme pieces for some student groups, and that some groups had only very difficult or uninteresting pieces to choose from.

At a suggestion from a parent and musician, I wrote this work for oboe, bassoon and piano for skilled high school students. I hoped to compose something that had strong melodic material, interesting textural and scoring features, and yet was performable within a reasonable amount of practice time. Another concern was to have a piano part that was not significantly more difficult than the other parts and was an equal contributor in the trio.

The form is similar to a Baroque trio sonata, having four movements, slow-fast-slow-fast.

Performance Note

Playable by school students and community players of around a Grade 5 - 6 level or above.