Telluride Chamber Music: Concert & Film Screening Featuring Award-Winning Trio Duende, 8/22 & 8/24!

22 Aug Telluride Chamber Music: Concert & Film Screening Featuring Award-Winning Trio Duende, 8/22 & 8/24!

Telluride Chamber Music and Palm Arts co-present a homecoming concert and film screening featuring the award-winning Trio Duende. Events take place August 22, 6 p.m. & August 24, 7 p.m.!

Advance tickets: $40/Adults; $20/Students. Tickets on the door: $45/Adults; $20/Students. Tickets are available at telluridechambermusic.org 

Film Screening:”Awadagin Pratt: Black in America,” August 22, 6pm, Wilkinson Public Library. Free admission

Go here for more about Telluride Chamber Music.

Go here for more about Palm Arts.

And please scroll down for a preview of the show.

Long-time local and internationally renowned violinist Tom Stone is scheduled to perform at the Michael D. Palm Theatre on August 24 with fellow members off  the Trio Duende: Naumberg award-winning pianist Awadagin Pratt, and Avery Fisher Career award-winning cellist Sophie Shao. The program includes music by Beethoven, Brahms and Vasks and is a co-presentation by Telluride Chamber Music and Palm Arts. A screening of a documentary made about the pianist, “Awadagin Pratt: Black in America,” is to be held at Wilkinson Public Library on August 22.

This trio of musicians has played all over the world, but Telluride is a familiar and fond place.

Stone has been coming to Telluride since the early 1980’s when his parents, long-term, part-time residents Donna and Tom Stone, bought a house in town. Growing up, Stone had a history of performing in Telluride, first with Peter Yarrow at a holiday concert with the Carradine brothers, then at one of the performances of Handel’s Messiah with Telluride Chamber Music and Telluride Choral Society.

Stone’s overriding memory of the Messiah performance was of Mary Beth Tukman’s hiking boots being part of her concert outfit which he thought was “uniquely Telluride and looked great on stage.”

Around 1997, Stone and Pratt performed together at the Sheridan Opera House with Stone’s internationally renowned chamber ensemble, the Cypress String Quartet. Students at that time might also remember working with the group during their visits to the school, something Trio Duende will repeat on this trip. The workshop at the high school is scheduled for August 23.

In addition to the concert performance at the Palm, and the educational workshop at the school, there is another not-to-be-missed event during the trio’s stay, a screening of the documentary “Awadagin Pratt: Black in America.” Again, that takes place August 22, 6pm.

After witnessing the globally broadcast execution of George Floyd by officers of the Minneapolis Police Department, Pratt published a podcast that quickly evolved into a multimedia musical experience. “Awadagin Pratt: Black in America” fused the music of Bach, Messaien, and Liszt with still and moving pictures by filmmaker Alrick Brown. The original narration features Awadagin chronicling his life from his time as a music student at the Peabody Conservatory through his ascent to international acclaim – and through graphic accounts of the numerous police stops and arrests he experienced for “Driving While Black.”

In 2023, a documentary film version of “Awadagin Pratt: Black in America,” directed by Michelle Bauer Carpenter, aired in more than one million U.S. households and screened at film festivals across the country.

Bauer kindly gave permission for the documentary to be screened at Wilkinson Public Library. Awadagin will be there in person for a meet-and-greet after the showing.

More about the members of Trio Duende:

Trio Duende formed in 2018. The name “Duende,” inspired by Gabriel Garcia Lorca’s writing on the subject, is meant to represent the indescribable in art and the human experience.

Violinist Tom Stone and pianist Awadagin Pratt met as teenagers and formed a bond usually reserved for brothers. They have been performing together for more than 30 years. Cellist Sophie Shao is the perfect partner for the trio, bringing her own fire and force of will to the mix.

Since launching onto the international stage after winning the prestigious Naumburg International Piano Competition in 1992 and receiving a 1994 Avery Fisher Career Grant, Awadagin Pratt has received acclaim for delivering “forceful, imaginative, and precisely tinted” performances (Washington Post) and is hailed as “one of the great and distinctive American pianists and conductors of our time” (WGBH). 

At the White House:

Awadagin’s solo at the White House:

On Sesame Street:

Tom Stone was a founding member of the Cypress String Quartet and has performed thousands of concerts throughout North America, Europe, Asia and Latin America. Praised by Gramophone for “artistry of uncommon insight and cohesion,” and by The New York Times for “tender, deeply expressive” interpretations, the group recorded over 15 albums and are heard regularly on hundreds of radio stations throughout the world; in  the Netflix original series “House of Cards”; and collaborated with leading artists ranging from Michael Franti of Spearhead to modern dance companies.

Cellist Sophie Shao, winner of the prestigious Avery Fisher Career Grant and top prizes at the Rostropovich and Tchaikovsky competitions, is a versatile and passionate artist whose performances The New York Times described as “eloquent, powerful,” and “beautifully phrased and interestingly textured”; the LA Times noted as “impressive”; and The Washington Post described as “deeply satisfying.”

Shao has appeared as a celebrated soloist to critical acclaim throughout the United States.