Program and Artist Biography

In November 1975, the newly formed Raphael Trio made "a most auspicious debut" (The New York Times) at Carnegie Hall as winner of the Concert Artists Guild Award. Since then, it has performed regularly in the leading concert halls of the United States and Europe, appearing in London, Geneva, Paris, Frankfurt, Vienna, Budapest, Venice, Washington, D.C., San Francisco, Denver, Pittsburgh, Baltimore, Chicago, Boston, and New York.

The Raphael Trio is acclaimed for its creative approach to programming, including its series focusing on the works of single composers. At Carnegie Hall, the trio has presented cycles of concerts dedicated to the works of Brahms, Beethoven, Schubert, Dvorak, Mozart, Mendelssohn, Faure, and Schumann. In celebration of its 25th anniversary, the trio appeared in concerts throughout the United States, performing the complete Beethoven trios in cycles of three concerts at The Phillips Collection, Marlboro College, Vermont, and WGBH/Boston and in gala concerts in New York, which were broadcast by National Public Radio, WNYC, and Performance Today, NPR's live broadcast concert series.  It has performed the complete Mozart trios at the Vienna Konzerthaus's Mozart Tage, Magyar Radio’s Mozart Festival in Budapest, Duisburg's Mozart Festival, in Holland and Austria, at the Kennedy Center, and in live recordings for National Public Radio.

In celebration of its 15th anniversary, the trio performed a three-concert series of the late Haydn trios at Carnegie Hall; in 2009, in commemoration of the 200th anniversary of Haydn's death, it repeated the series at the Phillips.  The group has also performed the complete Beethoven trios at New York's Town Hall, Frankfurt's Alte Oper, San Francisco's Beethoven Festival, the Sheffield Festival, London's Wigmore Hall Beethoven Festival, and Carnegie Hall. The Raphael Trio appears annually at the Phillips.

In addition to its commitment to presenting the standard repertoire as well as lesser known works by the great composers, the Raphael Trio maintains an active role in commissioning, performing, and recording works written for it by contemporary composers. The trio's world premieres of such works include trios by Rainer Bischof, Edward Cohen, Thomas Oboe Lee, David Liptak, Dina Koston, Frederic Rzewski, Su-Lian Tan, Douglas Weiland, and Marjorie Merryman.