Trio Sōra - Biography

The Trio Sōra is a very fine ensemble indeed. Their understanding of the composition, their listening of each other, their sensitive and lively music-making — all these have given me joy and pleasure.

Sir András Schiff

Pauline Chenais piano
Fanny Fheodoroff violin
Angèle Legasa cello

Trio Sōra’s first CD release, the complete Beethoven Trios for Naïve (November 2020), was unanimously acclaimed for interpretations as free as they are rigorous (The Strad, les Echos, Gramophone, Deutschlandfunk Kultur etc.) and was awarded Choc Classica 2021, Times Best Classical Music Album 2020, Top Mezzo and Tak1 Gold. The performance Op 70 No 2 Ghost Trio was recently voted best performance on France Musique’s La Tribune des critiques de disque programme.

Trio Sōra has performed at London’s Wigmore Hall, the Beethoven-Haus in Bonn, the Verbier Festival, the Philharmonie de Paris, the Auditorium du Louvre, the Folle Journée de Nantes and the Aix-en-Provence Festival. In February 2022, at Paris’ Auditorium de Radio-France, Trio Sōra gave the world premiere of a BBT co-commission, Canadian composer Kelly-Marie Murphy’s Triple Concerto, When I too long have looked upon your face, with the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France conducted by Mikko Franck.

Further highlights in 2022 include a a series of concerts in collaboration with La Belle Saison featuring Fanny Mendelssohn, Mel Bonis, Lili Boulanger, Lera Auerbach, Camille Pépin and Kelly-Marie Murphy. These two projects will be combined in their next recording for Naïve in autumn 2022.

In addition to its 2020 Borletti-Buitoni Trust Fellowship, Trio Sōra has won the Hans Gal Prize, Special Prize of the Verbier Festival Academy, Parkhouse Award and is Laureate HSBC of the Aix-en-Provence Festival Academy and Laureate of the Charles Oulmont Prize.  Trio Sōra has benefited from collaborations with Mathieu Herzog, András Schiff, Menahem Pressler and Quatuor Ébène.

The trio is in residence at the Singer-Polignac Foundation & Dimore Del Quartetto and receives support from the Boubo-Music Foundation, Pleyel, the CNM, and the musical patronage of the Swiss Life Foundation.

Amanda Favier plays a Matteo Goffriler violin (1723) and Angèle Legasa a Giulius Cesare Gigli cello (1767), generously lent by the Boubo-Music Foundation.

The day we received the news of our BBT Fellowship will remain one of the best memories for the trio. We were simply waiting on a platform at Lausanne Station –  a routine day of travel – when this happy news came through.  We felt so honoured to be part of this big family and among such great artists!

In these times when we are so deprived of music and arts, BBT is here to support us and help keep us hopeful, and realise the best projects we could ever dream of.

Words are not enough to describe how important the role of BBT is in our career today.

Photographs by Astrid di Crollalanza