The Complete String Trios of Hans Gál and Hans Krása

Ensemble Epomeo need your help to relase a very beautiful and important CD of the complete music for string trio by Hans Gál and Hans Krása, leading members of a gifted generation of Jewish composers in Central Europe whose destinies were shaped by Nazi persecution in the years 1933-1945.

We can’t release this disc without your help. Please visit our Indiegogo fundraising campaign homepage to give what you can. We have some great thank-you’s available, and your donations are tax-deductable.

Hans Krása (1899-1944) was born in Prague and had established himself as one of the most exciting Czech composers of his generation in the years before WW II. However, in 1942, he was arrested by the Nazi’s and interred in the Theresienstadt ghetto, where he helped guid the unlikely flowering of a diverse musical life in collaboration with fellow-composers Pavel Haas, Gideon Klein and Viktor Ullmann until his deporation to Auschwitz, where he was murdered in the gas chambers on October 18, 1944. His two string trios come from the last months of his life, the visceral  and intense “Tanec” (or “Dance”) and the extraordinary “Passacaglia and Fugue,” the very last piece he wrote. Krása’s music was largely forgotten in the decades after the War, and has only recently begun to be rediscovered and fully appreciated

Viennese composer Hans Gál (1890-1987) was lucky to escape to Britain with his family in 1938, but endurred terrible hardships in British internment camps during the War, before settling in Edinburgh. His Serenade for Trio, opus 41, was composed in 1932, at the peak of his pre-war career when he was director of the conservatory in Mainz. His Trio in F-sharp Minor, opus 104, written in 1974, is part of the extraordinary late flowering of  Gál’s creativity in his ninth decade. Together, these two remarkable works frame a long and astonishingly diverse artistic life. Although Gál survied the war, his music fell into obscurity in the mid- 20th c., and these remarkable trios have remained almost completey unknown prior to their world-premiere recording on this disc. Ensemble Epomeo, in fact, gave the the first North American performances of both pieces.

Four beautiful and important works, long forgotten in the wake of tragedy and dislocation are brought together on this important recording for Avie Reocrds, who have led the way in the rediscovery of Gál’s music, with a series of recordings that have been among the most widely critically praised discs of the last few years. Gramophone Magazine has hailed Gál’s  “structural genius and contrapuntal mastery” and priased the serie’s “…committed performance…splendid sound, warmly recommended.” Classic FM Magazine has said “Gál is truly worth rediscovering”saying the series has “left me intrigued and delighted”

This CD will be the debut disc from the Anglo-American string trio  Ensemble Epomeo, who gave the Gál trios their American premieres in 2010 and 2011 respectively.  The recording was made leading producer/engineer (and grandson of Hans Gál), Simon Fox and in the beautiful concert hall at the Millfield School in Somerset, England in December 2011.

Ensemble Epomeo, Caroline Chin-violin, David Yang-viola and Kenneth Woods-cello, is an internationally touring string trio, whose performances combine intensity, virtuosity and accessibility.

Founded in 2008, their inaugural tours saw them performing in Italy, the UK and the USA, with performances at the Newburyport and Ischia festivals, and broadcasts on New England Public Radio and WKCR Columbia University in New York, where they were the subject of a 3 hour special showcase concert.

For more information about Ensemble Epomeo and the music on our debut CD, please visit http://ensemble-epomeo.net/

Ensemble Epomeo’s debut CD is a sponsored project of Musica Reginae, a 501(c)(3) non-profit Arts organization. Contributions for Ensemble Epomeo must be made payable to Musica Reginae Productions and are tax-deductible to the extent permitted by law. Donations made on Indiegogo will go directly to Musica Reginae.

What We Need & What You Get

This important disc is “in the can,’ but we can’t relaese it without your help!

We need you to help us raise $5000, a portion of the budget which includes production and post-production costs, mastering and pressing costs and mechanical copyright fees.

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