The internationally renowned Berlin Piano Trio, founded in 2004, captivates audiences and press alike with its charismatic style and warm sound.

In 2007, Berlin Piano Trio won First Prize and the interdisciplinary Grand Prix at the International Competition of Contemporary Chamber Music in Krakow, created by Krzysztof Penderecki. In the same year, the trio won First Prize and an audience award at the European Chamber Music Competition in Karlsruhe and in 2009 received a highly coveted Prix Marguerite Dütschler during the Sommets Musicaux de Gstaad, Switzerland. In 2010, the ensemble took third place (first and second prizes were not awarded) in the Joseph Haydn International Chamber Music Competition in Vienna, where it was also honoured with the audience award funded by the Esterházy Foundation.

Musicians of the Berlin Piano Trio studied in Markus Becker’s chamber music class at the Hochschule für Musik, Theater und Medien in Hannover. In 2007, the ensemble became a member of the widely renowned European Chamber Music Academy, which promotes leading string quartets and piano trios at an international level. Thanks to its membership of the ECMA, Berlin Piano Trio has studied under outstanding chamber musicians and artistic personalities, such as Hatto Beyerle (Alban Berg Quartett), Shmuel Ashkenasi (Vermeer Quartet), Peter Cropper (Lindsay String Quartet), Eckart Heiligers (Trio Jean Paul), Avedis Kouyoumdjian, Anner Bylsma and Ferenc Rados.

Besides their chamber music activity, the Berlin Piano Trio’s musicians are academic lecturers, regularly invited to lead master classes.

During the chamber concert at the Warsaw Philharmonic, Krzysztof (first violin and soloist of Berliner Philharmoniker) and Katarzyna Polonek with Nikolaus Resa will present compositions linked in various ways with the former Habsburg Empire: Joseph Haydn’s ‘Gypsy’ Trio in G major and Antonín Dvořák’s ‘Dumky’ Piano Trio No. 4 in E minor, inspired by Eastern Slavic traditional music, which was the famous Czech composer’s farewell to his compatriots before he left for the United States towards the end of the nineteenth century.

Jan Lech