The Champlain Trio released their first multi-work album this summer, featuring composers that have been somewhat lost to time. Vermont Public Classical's Helen Lyons spoke to the group about their lives, how they got started, and the intriguing music on their new album, 'Forgotten Voices.'
TRANSCRIPT
HELEN LYONS: The Champlain Trio is a more recent addition to Vermont's vibrant chamber music scene, and they released their first full-length album, 'Forgotten Voices', this summer, with short and long-form works for piano trio. Let's meet the crew.
EMILY TAUBL: My name is Emily Taubl. I play the cello. I have a 15 month old daughter named Lily, and so my life is very different than it once was. I have a little less practice time. I have a lovely, lovely life entertaining her with my playing.
HIROMI FUKUDA: My name is Hiromi Fukuda. I'm the pianist in the trio. I'm from Japan. I'm a huge dog lover. I currently do not have a dog, but once I retire, I'm getting a dog.
LETITIA QUANTE: My name is Letitia Quante. I play the violin and I adore nature. I'm not on stage or playing music or with my wonderful friends here, you'll find me in a garden or in the forest.
HELEN LYONS: How did you all come to form the ensemble?
EMILY TAUBL: We met about 5 years ago or started playing together 5 years ago. Letitia and I have known each other since we were kids, we overlapped at the Juilliard pre-college program. Hiromi and I met through mutual friends after she moved to Burlington, and then I introduced them and I said we should play together. We all kind of seem to get along musically and personally, and we had a concert scheduled and of course that was scheduled for like March of 2020. So that concert never happened, and we quickly saw that we weren't going to play any concerts or any chamber music for a very long time. So we decided to then, I guess, pod up!
LETITIA QUANTE: Chamber pod, here we come!
EMILY TAUBL: We made a chamber pod and we, we tested and we rehearsed every week all the way through COVID just to have something musically fulfilling to do and ended up just kind of getting along so well.
HELEN LYONS: The 'chamber pod' rehearses weekly at Letitia's Farm, often with unexpected audiences.
EMILT TAUBL: She [Leticia] has a a door that's just all glass and so while we're rehearsing just most of the time just a chicken walks by or like at rooster or it's amazing. It's so fun. It's the quintessential musician experience in Vermont.
HELEN LYONS: One of the silver linings of the pandemic for the trio was the opportunity to dig into researching lesser known composers, resulting in their new album 'Forgotten Voices.' Who are the composers on this album and why 'forgotten' voices?
HIROMI FUKUDA: So we are featuring three women: one is an English composer named Alice Vern Brett, and then two French, women, Charlotte Sohy and the other one is Mel Bonis. It's very hard to find their scores, and I've read that a lot of the male composers, their manuscripts end up in a college or in a library, they donate, their heirs donate, so they end up having somewhat more of an official presence. For female composers, often they are sitting in family attics somewhere...
EMILY TAUBL: ...so most of our research is getting little tips or finding a name and then doing all this obsessive digging.
LETITIA QUANTE: ..and every woman who whose music we've fallen in love with, you can't help but fall in love with their lives. They have survived the most amazing things, not just as humans, but as women, as mothers, as incredible artists and so it just- for me it resonates, it motivates me to try to be a better person every day just to know about these women, so I just, I hope everyone discovers them.
HIROMI FUKUDA: One of our passions, I should say, is really introducing these female composers, these composers, female composers always there. And they were quite active back in their lifetimes, were appreciated, had positions sometimes, but then the thing is like after they died, it was just all forgotten. So we're just trying to pad up this knowledge that we know as music history and just add that other half that also existed all along.
HELEN LYONS: And what has been the reaction when you program these works of your your live audiences to these pieces?
EMILY TAUBL: We performed, I guess maybe a few months ago, somewhere in New York and a person came up after the concert with just tears pouring down his face over the Mel Bonis pieces. He said, 'it's just what my soul needed to hear,' and they really are these magical, two very short movements, but they, they just pull all of the emotion out of you. You can't not feel gripped by the the piece and, and same with Alice's fantasy, it's dark, it's light, it's all of the emotions in a one movement piece which is why we've been able to program it a lot because it fits so well onto a program like that.
LETITIA QUANTE: It's becoming more and more normal to start having these women programmed on programs. There was an element of, people might not come if they're not recognizing the names in front of them. I think that's where the recording becomes really important also, is that people can familiarize themselves and decide to come see it live.
HELEN LYONS: How can people get their hands and ears on the album?
EMILY TAUBL: So the album Forgotten Voices is out now. It's on all the major streaming platforms, and you can also have a physical copy. Go to our website Champlain Trio.com and write to us. We'll have them available.
HELEN LYONS: And finally, where can folks find you out in the wild in the coming months? Where will you be performing?
HIROMI FUKUDA: Once the fall season starts, we'll be playing in Keen, New York on October 11th.
EMILY TAUBL: And then we'll be on the Vermont State University Lyndon campus on October 12th.
LETITIA QUANTE: And then October 19th we'll be in Woodstock at the Chamber Music series at the North Chapel.
HELEN LYONS: Thank you so much to Letitia, Emily, and Hiromi for a delightful chat. Find out all about the Champlain Trio, their album, and their upcoming concerts at Champlaintrio.com.
