Z.E.N. Trio (Musica Viva Tasmania)

[Tony Senatore]

Z.E.N. Trio (Musica Viva Tasmania)

Jo St Leon

August 13, 2022

Z.E.N. Trio. Photo © Darren Leigh Roberts

The three musicians are each magnificent in this wonderful concert; as a trio they are transcendent.

The Z.E.N. Trio’s name is an acronym for the three musicians’ initials, but it is also an apt description of their musical philosophy: ‘the forgoing of the self for total togetherness’. As Zen masters will attest, it’s a simple philosophy that is extraordinarily difficult to attain. Right from the opening bars of this concert, the Z.E.N. trio proved more than equal to the task.

Intense, passionate, serious, exuberant, virtuosic – all these words describe last night’s performance. But the word I came away with was reverence: for the music, for the composers, and for the art of playing chamber music. As individual artists, each of the three was magnificent. As a trio they were transcendent.

Arno Babajanian’s 1952 Piano Trio in F Sharp Minor opened the program. The opening bars – a profound melody reminiscent of an Armenian liturgical chant – were played with a simplicity and sincerity that is hard to describe in words. It was a whispered invitation: ‘come with us, we’re going to show you the wonders that music can create’. And they did. This wonderful work was an avalanche of emotion, an expression of the vast terrain of the human spirit. Filled with the traditional music of the composer’s native Armenia, it abounded with energy, life and devotion.

The musicians captured every nuance of this music, from whispered devotions to a roar of passion. Pianist Zhang Zuo had a seemingly endless reserve of power that was immensely strong but never harsh, while the strings (Esther Yoo on violin and Narek Hakhnazaryan on cello) had a dynamic range I have rarely heard. This was a performance that engulfed the audience in the best possible way.

The world premiere of Matt Laing’s Little Cataclysms was interesting – I couldn’t decide whether I was glad I’d read the program notes or wished I’d never seen them. Laing writes, “Little Cataclysms  is about intimate, personal disasters… reimagined changed or unchanged, then gone, where the reimagining informs the memory in the silence that follows.” I could certainly hear this in the music, and it informed my listening, but I also found myself looking for it. Music usually speaks for itself, and I would love to have experienced these five little pieces without trying to identify the story behind them.