Returning for Musica Viva Australia following its inaugural tour in 2014, the Sitkovetsky Piano Trio, comprising on this occasion violinist Alexander Sitkovetsky, guest cellist Bartholomew LaFollette and pianist Wu Qian, are all graduates of the Yehudi Menuhin School, a conservatoire for elite young classical musicians in Surrey, England.

The ensemble was formed in 2007, but currently does not have a permanent cellist.  Originally Leonard Elschenbroich filled this role between 2007 and 2014, while more recently Richard Harwood, Danjulo Ishizaka and Bartholomew LaFollette have served as guests. The genre of the Piano Trio may weather such changes better than, say, a string quartet in that often Piano Trios are made up of three soloists.

LaFollette, head teacher of cello at the Yehudi Menuhin School, was excellent on this occasion. Expressive and articulate, he performed largely from memory; clearly enjoying the acoustic of the Elisabeth Murdoch Hall his music-making was notably free, imaginative and intelligent.

For this 10-concert tour, the Sitkovetsky Piano Trio presents just one programme: an all-Russian first half comprising two elegies by Rachmaninov and Shostakovich, an Australian work by Lachlan Skipworth commissioned for Musica Viva Australia by Julian Burnside and finally Mendelssohn’s justifiably popular first Trio.

Rachmaninov wrote his Trio élégiaque No...