For the fourth concert of Redwood Arts’ Ruby Anniversary Season, we bring back for their third appearance an audience favorite: the San Francisco Piano Trio. The trio will perform Haydn’s Piano Trio no. 28 in E Major (Hob. XV:28), Brahms’ Piano Trio in C minor, op. 101 and Beethoven’s Piano Trio in B-flat Major, op. 97 ("Archduke"). Axel Strauss, Jean-Michel Fontineau, and Jeffry Sykes combine their talents to pursue their love of the piano trio literature. Together, they are an instructor of piano at Cal State, East Bay and instructors of cello and violin at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music.
Pianist Jeffrey Sykes has performed throughout the United States, Canada, Mexico, and Western Europe. The San Francisco Examiner praised his appearance with the San Francisco Contemporary Music Players as a "tour-de-force performance (that was) the evening's major delight." Recent activities include a Carnegie Hall recital with flutist Stephanie Jutt under the auspices of the Pro Musicis Foundation and a live broadcast over WGBH, Boston Public Radio. His performances have been frequently broadcast over NPR's Performance Today, and he has a discography including eleven CDs published by various labels. For the past ten years, Dr. Sykes has served as the Music Director of Opera for the Young, a professional opera company that gives more than 200 fully-staged performances a year to schoolchildren throughout the upper Midwest. Dr. Sykes joined the faculty of California State University, East Bay, in the fall of 2008 where he coaches, accompanies, and directs the piano accompanying class.
German violinist Axel Strauss joined the SF Conservatory faculty in 2001. He won the Naumburg Violin Award in 1998, and since has performed throughout North America with major orchestras. His concerto appearances have taken him to Germany, Japan, China, and Eastern Europe. Mr. Strauss is frequently invited to music festivals including the Marlboro Music Festival in Vermont, International Music Festival of Saga in Japan, and the Kammermusiktage Mettlach in Germany. In 2012 Axel Strauss was appointed Professor of Violin at the Schulich School of Music at McGill University in Montreal, where he also serves as Chair of the String Area.
Cellist Jean-Michel Fonteneau is the Chair of String and Piano Chamber Music at the SF Conservatory of Music. He is a founding member of the Ravel String Quartet, winner of two prizes at the Evian String Quartet Competition, and of the first French Grammy Award "Les Victoires de la Musique Classique". They toured extensively around the world and created the first ever string quartet residency program in France. A passionate and devoted teacher, Jean-Michel Fonteneau served on the faculty of the Conservatoire National Suprieur de Musique in Lyon, France, until 1999, when he moved to the United States to join the faculty of the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. Mr. Fonteneau's recordings can be found with Musidisc-France and Albany Records.