Things are looking up for Orange County's Trio Céleste

A good thing to know about Trio Céleste, though not absolutely necessary, is how to pronounce the name.

“I don’t even know how to correctly pronounce it, there you go,” the group’s cellist Ross Gasworth quips. The other two members, pianist Kevin Kwan Loucks and violinist Iryna Krechkovsky, quickly chime in. It’s “Say-lest,” they say, though “Seh-lest” is fine by them, too. Where did the name come from? The first time the group played was during a harvest moon, a “celestial event.”

The three of them showed up the other morning at an Irvine eatery to sip coffee and talk about recent developments, like the release of their first album, on Navona Records. The group, ensemble-in-residence at UC Irvine, seems on the verge of a breakout. Already busy on chamber music series throughout California, the trio recently signed with New York management, which will pursue out-of-state opportunities.

The non-profit organization they run, Chamber Music | OC, which promotes chamber music through performance, education and outreach, is now winding up its third season. Next year it will hold a concert in Carnegie Hall, with stellar guests including violinists Philip Setzer and Eugene Drucker from the Emerson Quartet.

Posted Date: 
Thursday, April 21, 2016