Greek Heritage Olympus Piano Trio make local debut in Reading, Pennsylvania

READING, PA – The Olympus Piano Trio – named for the home of the ancient Greek gods on Mount Olympus will make their local Reading debut at the WCR Center for the Arts on Friday, April 21 at 7:30 PM. The concert is part of the Friends of Chamber Music series and features violinist Regi Papa, cellist Ben Capps and pianist Konstantine Valianatos who met as students at the renowned Juilliard School. The three musicians discovered they all shared Greek heritage. Papa and Valianatos were born in Greece and Capps is Greek-American. They began playing together and formed the trio in 2010, as reported in the Reading Eagle. The Olympus Piano Trio performs a wide repertoire of classical masterpieces and champions the music of Greek and Diaspora composers.

Valianatos told the Eagle that he is looking forward to returning to Reading for this concert after having performed a solo recital at the Miller Center for the Arts.

Among the works scheduled to be performed are Sergei Rachmaninoff’s Trio elegiaque No. 1 in G minor; Antonin Dvorak’s Trio in E minor (“Dumky”); Beethoven’s Trio in D Major; and Odd World by Greek-Canadian composer Christos Hatzis who teaches at the University of Toronto.

An excerpt from a longer multimedia music-theater work composed by Hatzis in 2000, Odd World premiered in Toronto. Odd World is the third of eight movements and is named for its odd-numbered meters (e.g., 5/8 and 7/8).

Capps said, as reported in the Eagle, “We’ve been playing that piece for a long time. It’s become one of the staples of our repertoire. It’s one of our favorite pieces, because it’s so obviously Greek – it’s like a virtuosic dance piece. Audiences really respond well to it.”

Odd World is among the works on the trio’s first album which also includes Felix Mendelssohn’s second Piano Trio and Maurice Ravel’s Piano Trio in A Minor.