Our 2008/2009 Season
November 2, 2008 
Trio Con Brio Copenhagen
Jens Elvekjaer, piano
Soo-Jin Hong, violin
Soo-Kyung Hong, cello
Founded in Vienna in 1999, the trio first drew attention with a sensational performance that took the highest prize at Germany's prestigious ARD-Munich Competition in 2002. Since then, they won first prize in several more competitions: Italy's Premio Vittorio Gui (Florence), Norway's Trondheim Chamber Music Competition, and the Danish Radio Competition.They also won the "Allianz Prize" for Best Ensemble in Germany's Festspiele Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, and second prize in the Vienna Haydn Competition and the Premio Trio di Trieste (Italy, 2002). Critics have praised the trio for their "sparkling joie de vivre" and "magic dialogue;" a review of their performance at the Salzburg Mozarteum said, "they cast a spell over their audience...so alive, so musical...ravishing." Trio con Brio Copenhagen belongs unquestionably to the upper echelons of young chamber ensembles performing today.
Trio con Brio Copenhagen was the recipient of the Kalichstein-Laredo-Robinson International Trio Award in 2005.This biennial award, one of the most coveted in the world of chamber music, honors in perpetuity the Kalichstein-Laredo-Robinson Trio by encouraging and enhancing the career of an extraordinarily accomplished "rising" piano trio. The prize carries with it appearances on twenty major concert series across the USA including New York City's Carnegie Hall; Trio con Brio Copenhagen was chosen by members of the Kalichstein-Laredo-Robinson Trio as well as the eminent musicians Claude Frank (pianist), Michael Tree (violist of the Guarneri Quartet), and Peter Wiley (former cellist of the Beaux Arts Trio).
The American Record Guide wrote of the trio's debut CD: "One of the greatest performances of chamber music I've ever encountered... What stands out from this ensemble is the range of tone and sound... They command an amazing range of timbres. Melodies sing with an aching sweetness, or seduce with wild eroticism, or haunt with impenetrable mystery." And Gramophone Magazine wrote: "it's easy to see what so impressed the judges...[the] performances can compete with the best available...airtight ensemble...a superb, greatly gifted chamber group."
Trio con Brio Copenhagen's busy schedule includes major concert halls in Europe, USA and Asia, such as Tivoli Concert Hall (Copenhagen), the Concertgebouw (Amsterdam), Carnegie Hall (New York City), the Berlin Konzerthaus; the Mozartsaal (Vienna), Herkulessaal (Munich), Beethoven-Haus (Bonn), the Musikhalle (Hamburg), the Mozarteum (Salzburg), the Seoul and Sejong Arts Centers (Korea), Bunka Kaikan (Tokyo), Teatro Olimpico (Vicenza, Italy), the Båstad Chamber Music Festival (Sweden), and the Bergen and Trondheim Chamber Music Festivals (Norway).
Trio con Brio Copenhagen is frequently featured as the soloists in Beethoven's Triple Concerto with orchestras such as the Copenhagen Philharmonic, the Danish National Symphony Orchestra/DR, the South Jutland Symphony Orchestra, the Aalborg Symphony Orchestra, the Odense Symphony Orchestra, l'Orchestre Syrinx (France), and the Prime Philharmonic Orchestra (Korea).