River Campus kicks off 12th season of Sundays at Three

The Sundays at Three chamber music series at Southeast Missouri State University is reaching greater heights this season by hosting a guest performance by the Delphi Trio, a piano trio that has performed throughout the United States and Canada.

The Delphi Trio will perform the first concert of the 12th season of Sundays at Three on Sunday in the Shuck Music Recital Hall at the River Campus.

Dr. Brandon Christensen, founder of Sundays at Three and violin and viola professor at Southeast, said he has always had to ask friends and acquaintances to perform as a favor because there wasn't a budget for the series.

Chateau Girardeau, a local retirement community, has been a part sponsor for the series for several seasons, but this year it stepped up and sponsored the entire series. This allowed Christensen to work with the national management company, Ariel Artists, to find a trio outside his circle of friends.

"This is a special concert in the sense that it shows the evolution of the series from something that was very much about me and my circle of friends and my chamber music priorities to being something that's sort of larger and has a larger reach that goes outside of that circle," Christensen said.

Formed in 2010, the Delphi Trio is made up of pianist Jeff LaDeur, violinist Liana Bérubé and cellist Michelle Kwon. LaDeur, Bérubé and Kwon met at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music where they each studied in the chamber music program.

Chamber music is intended to be played in a small room. The Delphi Trio has become known for its expertise in chamber music and was reviewed as having "spot-on ensemble playing and a beautifully blended sound" by the San Francisco Classical Voice. The trio plays mostly classical music such as Mozart, Beethoven and Brahms, but adds eclectic pieces as well.

"One of the pieces we're going to play for our concert for Sundays at Three is written by a friend of ours named Max Stoffregen, and the piece that he wrote for our trio incorporates, like, techno and electronica," LaDeur said.

Besides their early success, the Delphi Trio is a good fit for Sundays at Three because the members of the trio are relatively close in age to college students, Christensen said.

"We're all basically 30 -- within a year or two of each other -- and there's something really nice about being able to connect with collegiate students because we're not so far apart," LaDeur said. "I think it's nice for the students to feel like they can ask questions and just kind of have somebody who is easy to be like, 'Oh yeah, that's not so far away' or if they have questions about the professional life -- what is life being a musician in addition to the nitty-gritty musical work that we might do."

In addition to performing in Sundays at Three, the Delphi Trio is teaching a master class that Southeast chamber music students may attend. A master class is a group class during which an outside expert teaches and several students perform, but everyone is there to listen.

Outside of critiquing students' mechanics and technique, LaDeur offered advice for students wanting to become professional musicians.

"The people who have hopes or ambitions to make a living in music, I would say if you can't live without it then you should find a way to do it," LaDeur said. "And if you have other things you like as much, I would do that and then continue music as part as your life but not as a profession. I wouldn't discourage anyone from going into music, but I would say you want to be very, very honest and self-reflective about how committed you are to making that journey."

General admission tickets to see the Delphi Trio at Sundays at Three are $10; faculty, staff and senior citizen tickets are $9; and Southeast student tickets are $3. To view the complete 2014-2015 schedule for the Sundays at Three chamber music series, visit chambermusicsundays.com. More information on the Delphi Trio can be found at thedelphitrio.com.