Harald Kosik, piano

Verena Stourzh, violin

Hannes Gradwohl, cello

The Haydn Trio Eisenstadt is one of Austria’s leading chamber music ensembles.

Apart from the trio’s annual concert series at the Haydn Festival in Burgenland the year 2006 was filled with a rich and varied programme. 2006 Austria celebrated both Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and the Austrian writer Ingeborg Bachmann. As part of the ensemble’s “Bachmann to Music” project the Haydn Trio Eisenstadt performed over 20 concerts in New York, Washington, Beograd, Dublin, Klagenfurt and Vienna. Tours took the Haydn Trio Eisenstadt to the USA, Cyprus, Germany and Belgium. Numerous CDs were recorded 2006: Schubert’s complete piano trios on 2 CDs, 65 Scottish songs by Joseph Haydn together with Scottish singers Lorna Anderson and Jamie MacDougall on 3 CDs, volume 8 of Haydn’s piano trios, a CD of the “Bachmann to Music” project and 3 CDs with extended piano chamber music by Haydn.

2007 will be devoted to the completion of CD recordings. Joseph Haydn’s piano trios will be finished and the production of Scottish songs-recordings be continued, the ensemble will also record Joseph Haydn’s Concertini and Divertimenti and, to complete the series of the great masters of “Wiener Klassik”, Ludwig van Beethoven’s complete piano trios. The Result of these major recording activities will amount to 14 CDs.

The Haydn Trio Eisenstadt was founded in 1992. Instruction in the chamber music class of the Vienna Academy of Music under Georg Ebert was followed by participation in master classes given by the Trio di Trieste. In 1994, the renowned Accademia Chigiana in Siena bestowed on the Haydn Trio Eisenstadt the honorary diploma for the "best piano trio“ and an award for "the best foreign contribution" of the entire festival. This distinction led to their being admitted to the Scuola Internazionale di Musica da Camera del Trio di Trieste, which the ensemble attended for two years.

Since 1995 the Haydn Trio Eisenstadt has presented an exclusive concert series at the Haydn Festival Burgenland, featuring all 43 piano trios by Joseph Haydn as well as the principal works of piano trio literature. Since 2003 this concert series has been held, not as formerly in the smaller Empire Room of the Esterházy Palace, but in the great Haydn Hall, due to the huge demand for tickets.

In addition to regular concerts in Austria, the Haydn Trio Eisenstadt  has been on tour to Germany, Italy, France, England, Ireland, Hungary, Israel, Turkey and Switzerland. The ensemble has performed at music festivals worldwide such as the Klangbogen - Festival in Vienna, the Haydn Biennale Vlaanderen in Belgium, the Venyssel Festival  in Denmark, the Pushkin Museum in Moscow and the Haydn Festival  in Japan.

Since 2002 the Haydn Trio Eisenstadt has worked together with the well-known and much loved Scottish singers Lorna Anderson (soprano) and Jamie MacDougall (tenor) on presenting all 425 Folksong Arrangements composed by Haydn both in the concert hall and on CD. This project, which is supported by a large number of sponsors, is supervised by the Scottish musicologist Professor Marjorie Rycroft from the University of Glasgow. This first ever complete CD edition of Haydn's Folksong Arrangements will comprise a total of 17 CDs. The first CD of the edition was released in May 2004. www.scottishsongs.at

The Haydn Trio Eisenstadt is not only interested in the classical repertoire for piano trio

but is also dedicated to work on contemporary music. To this end the trio initiated a new concert series entitled ton.art.project in 2002. The ton.art.project aims to be a platform for contemporary music within the context of other art forms and to focus on central questions of our time. Newly-commissioned works are performed in concerts and recorded on CD.  www.tonartproject.at