French artists Trio Wanderer, Pascal Rophé and Alexandra Soumm Make HK Début this French May
As part of the French May Arts Festival 2025, Hong Kong Sinfonietta will welcome Trio Wanderer for their much-anticipated début in Hong Kong with two concerts on 14 and 17 May: HKS Recital Series: Trio Wanderer HK Début and Trio Wanderer Plays Beethoven Triple Concerto. Violinist Alexandra Soumm will also make her début in town with a concert on 31 May: Great Violin Concertos: Alexandra Soumm Plays Bruch.
Ahead of the concerts, we had the chance to discuss with the artists about their musical journey and their anticipation for their first performances in Hong Kong.
Three-time winner of Chamber Music Ensemble of the Year at the French Victoires de la Musique Classique, Trio Wanderer is a French piano trio made up of pianist Vincent Coq, violinist Jean-Marc Phillips-Varjabédian, and cellist Raphaël Pidoux. These three French musicians are avid, open-minded, wandering travelers who explore the musical world, spanning the centuries from Mozart and Haydn to the present. Acclaimed for their extraordinarily sensitive style, almost telepathic understanding of each other and technical mastery, Trio Wanderer is one of the world’s foremost chamber ensembles.
They chose the name Wanderer as a tribute to Schubert’s music. The ‘Wanderer’ is an omnipresent theme across his works. The Wanderer is the one who goes on the roads of life without a specific purpose, in an incessant search for understanding of the world and oneself. “We believe that our work as musicians should be guided by this idea, to never take things for granted and always push further in understanding the masterpieces we play,” they say.
They all graduated from the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique in Paris. Then, international competitions, concerts and the “fun” of playing together pushed them to form the trio. “The trio with piano requires three strong and distinct artistic personalities who manage to forget their ego to serve a common goal, the work of the composer. It is a mysterious balance between these three always perceptible individualities and the unity of the ensemble that makes a real piano trio,” they explain.
Hailed as the successor of the legendary Beaux Arts Trio, Trio Wanderer has performed on the most prestigious music stages: the Berlin Philharmonie, Théâtre des Champs-Elysées, Vienna Musikverein, Wigmore Hall, Teatro alla Scala, Sydney Opera, Palau de la Música Catalana, Munich Herkulessaal, Seoul Arts Center, Moscow Tchaïkovsky Concert Hall, Washington Library of Congress, Montréal Place des Arts, Tokyo’s Kioi Hall, Tonhalle Zürich and Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw. They have also performed at major festivals, including the Salzburg, Edinburgh, Montreux, Schleswig-Holstein, La Roque d’Anthéron, La Folle Journée de Nantes, Rheingau, Schwetzingen, Stresa, Granada and Osaka International Chamber Music festivals.
For their two concerts with Hong Kong Sinfonietta, they will present masterpieces in the piano trio repertoire and works characteristic of the German and French Romantic traditions.
At their recital on 14 May, they will play Debussy’s Piano Trio, an early work by the composer, full of the delicate French Romanticism of the late 19th century. “Then it will be the Trio Op 49 of Mendelssohn, a work that Schumann called the ‘master-trio’ of his time. It is an extraordinary masterpiece filled with passion, virtuosic energy but also deep poetry. We will end the programme with the trio of Ravel whose 150th anniversary is being celebrated this year. Here again, we have an absolute masterpiece of 20th century musical literature,” they explain.
For their concerto performance on 17 May, they will play the Triple Concerto of Beethoven: “The piano trio is unusual in having a repertoire of concertos, Beethoven’s being of course the best known. It is a bright, shadowless, happy and spectacular version of Beethoven. We are delighted to be able to share this great musical moment with the musicians of Hong Kong Sinfonietta and conductor Tomáš Netopil (Music Director Designate of Prague Symphony Orchestra)“.
When asked how they feel about their Hong Kong début, they mention how great it is to discover a new city and a new audience, especially Hong Kong which has a very long and significant history. “The beauty of its harbour, its markets, the food are known all over the world. And it has one of the oldest tradition for very high level classical music in Asia. We can’t wait to discover all these aspects of Hong Kong!”
Trio Wanderer, Lanvollon, 2020
Born in 1989 in Moscow, Russia, Alexandra Soumm comes from a family of musicians. Her Ukrainian father and grandfather were violinists, and her mother a Russian pianist. She started learning the violin at the age of 5 and gave her first concerto at 7. She later moved to Vienna to study with the renowned pedagogue Boris Kuschnir and won the Eurovision Young Musicians Contest in 2004.
“My father taught me curiosity for very different music, something I’m also trying to develop with my own students. My mother taught me the love of art, and I spent a lot of time in museums from an early age. This helped me to make bridges between different forms of art. After leaving my parents to study in Vienna, I stayed over 15 years with my teacher Kuschnir, traveling with him and his quartet or older students (Julian Rachlin and Nikolaj Znaider),” Soumm recalls.
The violinist has performed with the London Philharmonic, Philharmonia Orchestra, Israel Philharmonic Orchestra, Orchestre Symphonique de Montréal, Orquesta Sinfónica de Galicia, Danish National Symphony Orchestra, NHK Symphony Orchestra, Detroit Symphony Orchestra, Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, and the Los Angeles Philharmonic at the Hollywood Bowl among many others. She has given recitals at the Louvre, Brussels Palais des Beaux-Arts and Wigmore Hall, and has also appeared at the City of London Festival, Verbier, Schleswig-Holstein, Deauville Easter and City of London festivals, as well as the Sommets Musicaux de Gstaad.
Now based in Paris, she founded with two friends the non-profit organisation Esperanz’Arts, whose goal is to make art forms accessible to people in schools, hospitals, prisons and homeless shelters.
“Since I was very little, I had the wish to perform for children and play in hospitals. In 2012, with two friends, we decided to create our own foundation and organise concerts for people who never have the possibility to experience music and its beauty. Our motto is “Arts for All”. We strongly believe that the access to art in its highest quality is a right for all. The concerts we played for homeless people, for people who are at the end of their life, or in prisons, were always very deep. For me, I feel it is my duty to bring music everywhere,” she explains.
Alexandra Soumm, Barcelona, 2016
For her concert with HK Sinfonietta, she will play Bruch’s Violin Concerto in G minor under the baton of French conductor Pascal Rophé. “I will perform the Bruch concerto – the very first piece I recorded in my life. It is one of the most loved concertos in the violin repertoire, and the lyricism, beauty and power that comes from it is still fantastic to experience for me, each time I play it on stage,” Soumm says.
French Conductor Pascal Rophé, Music Director of the Croatian Radio and Television Symphony Orchestra
Talking about her début in Hong Kong, she explains with enthusiasm: “It’s always interesting to see how musicians work and feel the music in a new environment, and I’m sure our work with the Hong Kong Sinfonietta will be great. Of course, I’m also very happy to discover the culture and history of Hong Kong. And also the food!”
More details about the concerts can be found here:
HKS Recital Series: Trio Wanderer HK Début (14 May)
Trio Wanderer Plays Beethoven Triple Concerto (17 May)
Great Violin Concertos: Alexandra Soumm Plays Bruch (31 May)