Selby & Friends Guest Artists

Kathryn Selby planned a break from trios, but fate decided otherwise, writes Judy Adamson.

WHEN the Macquarie Trio - and its relationship with the university that provided its name - fractured in spectacular fashion last year, a shell-shocked Kathryn Selby determined two things: to finish the series for subscribers if at all possible, and not to form another trio.

The former took a lot of phone calling, but eventually she managed it. The latter, she says now, was "the furthest thing from my mind. I just thought, well, I'll have a break for a while."

Then Selby began to rehearse for her final 2006 concert series with the Adelaide violinist Niki Vasilakis and the former Australian Chamber Orchestra principal cellist Emma-Jane Murphy. While familiar with each other's reputations, the three had never met and their immediate rapport took Selby by surprise. By the time the concerts were over, the women knew they wanted to keep playing together - and before long TrioOz was born.

"It's like when you meet somebody and you feel like you've known them for a very long time," says Selby.

"You don't usually go through that [kind of split] and then immediately pick up with somebody else. But with Emma-Jane and Niki, it was fantastic. Musically we just got along really well, and obviously that's the most important thing, but then we also liked being in each other's company. That was something I wasn't expecting."

In the meantime distraught Macquarie Trio subscribers had been sending piles of letters and emails about the demise of the group. They vented and expressed their sorrow. They encouraged. They offered advice. But mostly they hoped that, after 14 years involved in the life and music of the trio, concerts in some form could continue.

Selby longed to stretch herself with different performers after playing for so many years with the same people, but was concerned about how she could achieve this. There was no longer the financial and administrative support of the university to assist her. Could she safely continue to plan performances for five major cities, as with the Macquarie Trio? Or should she confine herself to Sydney?

In the end it was the support of the trio's former audience base that helped her decide. She chose a balance of three concert series with TrioOz, plus two more comprising herself on piano with a solo cellist (Li-Wei) and another trio (the Janaki String Trio). All this will be performed in the Macquarie Trio's former stamping grounds of Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Canberra and Adelaide, but under the familiar old moniker of Selby & Friends - a format Selby used with considerable success in the four years to 1992.

On the morning Selby and I talk, it's the first day of rehearsal preparing for the season's opening series next month. We chat in a North Sydney cafe in the brief window of time after Selby's school run, before she picks up Murphy and Vasilakis at the train station.

"We've been emailing each other lately saying 'Hey, I can't wait to get stuck into it,"' she says. "And we're trying to run this group slightly differently because with [the Macquarie Trio] Michael Goldschlager lived in Perth - and for a long time we were with Nick Milton and he lived in Adelaide and then moved to Europe - so our capabilities of getting together and working as a group were non-existent.

"In essence we would get together in the days preceding a tour, absolutely rehearse the guts out of it and then go on tour and as we performed it, it would evolve. I don't want to do that any more. That's not how I see working with a group and neither do Emma-Jane or Niki. So what we've decided to do is get together every week, but of course, Niki lives in Adelaide … so we're constantly looking for cheap deals on airlines."

Without the same level of sponsorship as the Macquarie Trio had, the financial risk this year is considerably higher. Selby jokes about her hair having turned "completely grey" in recent months, then becomes serious.

"Really, I'm terrified," she admits. "Absolutely terrified. I'm doing it without a net and that's scary, because I'm a pianist, you know - I'm not supposed to be out there doing this sort of stuff … financing it and basically putting my name on the line.

"For me, this year, I wanted to try the experiment [of the new trio] and see if it worked. I wanted us to play together and this is a golden opportunity because there's a guaranteed number of chances for us to play. It's hard to get a group off the ground as well, so we need to have the mileage behind us and a few reviews here and there just to see what people think of us."

Despite the anxieties attending the death of the old trio and birth of the new one, Selby is excited about the musical possibilities now and into the future and considers herself very fortunate.

"One great thing ended but I've got the prospect of going into something new," she says. "I really think that if I wasn't doing it I'd be a very sad person because a performer has to perform and, without an outlet like that, part of you dies. So I'm very, very lucky - and I'm very glad that those concerts [last year] actually happened so I could meet Niki and Emma-Jane and have an opportunity to play with them. These sorts of relationships are very precious."

The first Selby & Friends concerts, with TrioOz, will be at St Andrew's Cathedral in the city on March 20 and at the Monte Sant'Angelo Mercy College in North Sydney on March 25.

STEPPING OUT

When three’s company

Post Macquarie Trio, she’s still determined to provide great
classical music and to surround herself again with a talented
ensemble. Kathryn Selby speaks to ROD BENNETT

NORTHBRIDGE pianist Kathryn Selby hasn’t been idle since the disbanding of the Macquarie Trio last year.

She founded, managed and performed in this successful musical ensemble. That association made a huge impact on her and she was ‘‘devastated’’ when it ended. ‘‘It was something I created and managed and it was sad to let that go,’’ she said.

Before the Macquarie Trio, 1988-92, she was the namesake of Selby and Friends, an ensemble with transitional members and worked with a variety of top classical musicians.

She has resurrected Selby and Friends series (five concerts) with an emphasis on a particular trio which Selby described as ‘‘hitting it off’’ both musically and personally.

‘‘We formed for replacement concerts for Macquarie,’’ she said. ‘‘I didn’t know these girls very well before then.’’

‘‘I knew of Emma-Jane Murphy as the former principal cellist with the Australian Chamber Orchestra, and I’d heard the name of Niki Vasilakis in music circles.’’

So successful were their replacement concerts that the three women began Selby and Friends in a new guise, TrioOz,with a view to doing three concerts in the Selby and Friends series and beyond. Selby revealed that talks were under way about a possible residency.

Another new thing for TrioOz is the venue with this Sunday afternoon series moving to the ‘‘light-filled’’ McQuoin Centre at Monte Sant’ Angelo Mercy College in North Sydney.

‘‘It has good parking and there is a lift from the garage to the venue,’’ she said. ‘‘The acoustics are excellentwith wooden floors - I think it’s going to be great.’’

For the Selby and Friends concerts she will be teaming up with the award-winning
Janaki String Trio from the USA. This Californian trio has taken the chamber music world by storm. She will also be playing with Australian cellist Li-Wei for a recital tour in September.

‘‘The common thread in the programs are trios and sonatas by Beethoven,’’ Selby said. ‘‘There will also be a few chamber music favourites by Ravel, Schubert, Mendelssohn, Dvorak and Schumann.’’

The Monte Sant’ Angelo recitals are Sunday, at 2.30pm. The first is on March 25. The college is at the corner of Berry and Miller streets, North Sydney.

The other concert dates are May 13, July 29, September 9 and November 18.

For bookings phone 9969 7039 or email info@selbyandfriends.com.au

Back with help from her friends

Kathryn Selby finds a new path for her trio, W. L. Hoffmann writes.

WHEN brilliant young Australian pianist Kathryn Selby returned to Australia from New York in 1988, she set about establishing a group of instrumentalists which initially gave chamber music performances in the Sydney Powerhouse Museum as Selby and Friends.

‘‘That was a very bad time for me,’’ she said last week. ‘‘But the response of our audiences around the country was quite wonderful. I received hundreds of personal letters and emails, and everyone was so very supportive and wanting our concerts to continue. It was this response, together with the fantastic reception given to the two replacement programs which we presented to complete our promised 2006 season, that inspired me to consider ways of creating a new series of chamber music concerts that would continue the tradition for fine musical performances that we had been able to establish over the previous 14 years.’’

Certainly, that final concert last year when she was joined by two of Australia’s finest string players – exciting young violinist Niki Vasilakis and cellist Emma-Jane Murphy, formerly principal cellist of the Australian Chamber Orchestra – was a memorable event, highly acclaimed by critics and audiences.

Now Vasilakis and Murphy have joined Selby to form a new piano trio, as yet unnamed, which will be the central feature of a new series of concerts this year. The trio will perform three of the five programs being presented this year, with other notable Australian and overseas musicians appearing with Selby at the two remaining concerts. The new series uses the old name of Selby and Friends.

In Canberra the concerts will be performed on Monday nights in the Fairfax Theatre of the National Gallery of Australia, but now only at 7.30pm with the previous additional performance at 5.30pm having to be abandoned because of the financial constraints in realising the new venture.

The first concert will be on March 19 when the program will comprise three of the finest works from the piano trio repertoire – Beethoven’s Kakadu Variations Op 121a, the Piano Trio in C minor, Op 66 by Mendelssohn and Ravel’s incandescent Piano Trio in A minor. The May concert will introduce to Australian audiences a young United States chamber ensemble, the Janaki String Trio from Los Angeles. This is a very welcome inclusion in this year’s programming as works from the quite extensive string trio repertoire are rarely heard in the concert hall, and they will be playing trios for violin, viola and cello by Beethoven and 20th-century Polish composer Krzystof Penderecki, and then joining Selby in a realisation of the very lovely Piano Quartet in C minor by French composer Gabriel Faure.

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Meet the three that just had to be

STEPPING OUT

When three’s company