Café Music: The Isabella Lippi Piano Trio at Token Creek

 CAFÉ MUSIC: Piano Trios of Brahms, Schoenfield, Higdon

Lippi Piano Trio at Token Creek on Sunday, April 26, 2026 · 2:30 PM

The Lippi Piano Trio makes its inaugural appearance at Token Creek on Sunday, April 26 in a program that places one of the towering masterworks of the repertoire alongside two strikingly different counterparts, tracing the expressive range and enduring appeal of the piano trio over time and across styles.

The trio is led by violinist Isabella Lippi, familiar to Token Creek audiences as a cornerstone of our chamber orchestras over the past decade, in repertoire ranging from Bach and Vivaldi to Harbison. Joining her for their Token Creek debuts are Ukrainian cellist Nazar Dzhuryn and pianist Thomas Kasdorf. Heard mainly in Chicago, trio members bring a distinctive blend of clarity, suppleness, and imaginative range to their performances, achieving an ensemble sound both finely attuned and vividly individual.

Their afternoon of chamber music offers a fascinating and engaging study in contrasts and continuities:

Johannes Brahms’s Piano Trio No. 1 in B major, Op. 8, is a sweepingly Romantic masterpiece that balances exuberant, lyrical, youthful ardor with the structural mastery and refinement of his later years, the result of a radical revision completed nearly four decades after its premiere.

Paul Schoenfield’s Café Music brilliantly fuses the formal elegance of the classical piano trio with the infectious energy of ragtime, gypsy fiddle, and Broadway blues in a tour de force of wit and invention

Pale Yellow, the first movement of Jennifer Higdon’s Piano Trio offers a luminous, suspended sound world—an exploration of color and atmosphere in serene, ethereal soundscape.

Seating is limited in the Token Creek Concert Barn, whose intimate acoustic invites close listening and always rewards it. Reservations are recommended. A reception follows.

PROGRAM

Brahms — Piano Trio No. 1 in B major, Op. 8

Higdon — Piano Trio (2003): Pale Yellow

Schoenfield — Café Music

ARTISTS

Isabella Lippi, violin

Nazar Dzhuryn, ‘cello

Thomas Kasdorf, piano

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