2015/2016

Crime & Punishment

The Rodion Trio took their name from the protagonist in Dostojevsky’s master piece Crime and Punishment: Rodion Romanovich Raskolnikov. The members of the Rodion Trio commit a ‘musical crime’ themselves, by arranging a wide variety of pieces from many different stylistic periods for their unique combination of instruments: clarinet, saxophone and piano.
This coming season, the Rodion Trio takes it a step further: in their new programme, it’s all about crime…

Crime as an inpiration for programmatic works.
Music that was so different from the esthetics of the time in which it was performed, that some considered it to be a real crime.
And even music by a composer who actually committed a real crime…

Carlo Gesualdo, from the Madrigals book 6: Beltà poi che t’assenti and Moro lasso
Johann Sebastian Bach, from the cantata: Herr, gehe nicht ins Gericht mit deinem Knecht
Georges Bizet, from: Carmen
Franz Liszt, Mephisto Waltz
Emil von Reznicek, Raskolnikoff Overture

All pieces were arranged by Mark Toxopeus.

2014/2015

Until death do us part… and beyond
music from end to beginning

These are frightful times we live in. The way in which things will change is unclear, but we cannot continue to live our lives forever in the same way that we always have. History tells us that in the grand scheme of things, life is an endless cycle that always reinvents itself. There is no ending, there is no beginning. After every winter, spring will come.

The Rodion trio have put their thoughts on this matter into an extraordinary programme with a clear message: what really counts is the present. Enjoy life, go to a concert, live!

Leoš Janáček, On an overgrown path
Maurice Ravel, La Valse
Alexander Skrjabin, Vers la flamme
Antonio Vivaldi, La Primavera

Trouvère Machault

While searching for new exciting repertoire that is not necessarily well-known music, the Rodion Trio has come across the works of medieval composer, writer and poet Guillaume de Machaut and immediately fell in love with them. It started with a simple yet captivating ballad called “Doulz amis”: the Rodion musicians were blown away by the strength and quality of just two intertwining voices that create a beautiful harmony and melody together, played on clarinet and saxophone.

Ibo Bakker could well be called a present day Guillaume de Machaut. Being a singer, instrumentalist, poet and visual artist, Ibo writes his own songs with poetic lyrics. Like that of Machaut, Ibo’s music often speaks about mundane matters: particularly about love…

In this programme, Ibo and the members of the Rodion Trio will take you on a musical journey to discover the differences and similarities of ballads and chansons that have been written almost 700 years apart.

a.o.
Guillaume de Machaut, Riches d’amour
Guillaume de Machaut, Doulz amis
Guillaume de Machaut, Je ne cuit pas
Guillaume de Machaut, De petit po, denient volente
Guillaume de Machaut, Se quanque amours
Guillaume de Machaut, De Fortune me doy pleindre et loer
Guillaume de Machaut, De toutes flours

2013-2014

Enchanted!

Let yourself be taken away on a flying carpet to worlds far from here, to places where physics have been taken over by magic. Walk through an enchanted forest, save an oriental princess, experiment with white and black magic or join the Sugar Plum Fairy to the land of Cockaigne. The Rodion Trio offers you bewitchingly beautiful music in which your imagination will run wild!

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, The Magic Flute; Overture
Pjotr Iljitsj Tjaikovsky, The Nutcracker Suite
Nicolai Rimski-Korsakov, Sheherazade; The Prince and the Princess
Paul Dukas, The Sorcerer’s Apprentice

With their performance of the programme mentioned above, the Rodion Trio has won the International Chamber Music Competition Almere 2013!

«Wonderful! You are no sorcerer’s apprentices, you are full blown sorcerers!»