The Orpheus Piano Trio will perform at Wangaratta and Wagga on September 22 and 23, respectively, as part of its 2018 concert series.

The trio was formed in early 2012 by Albury-based Helena Kernaghan (piano) and Kaori Sparks (violin) and Castlemaine-based Sam Goble (cello).

Kernaghan said she first met Sparks when they collaborated on a concert to raise money for Sparks’ family after the devastating tsunami in 2011 in Fukushima in Japan.

She said Sparks had moved from Tokyo to Albury to raise her own young family.

“Kaori was appealing for local musicians to join her on the event,” she said.

“Sam and I had been playing together on and off for 20 years and we’d been looking for a violinist to join us. It all just aligned.”

Kernaghan and Goble were students at the Victorian College of the Arts and members of the Abraxas Piano Trio, which did a world tour in 2000.

The Orpheus Piano Trio’s debut studio recording was produced in Melbourne last year.

Kernaghan has been an expert music mentor, teacher and performer in Australia and abroad and is the artistic director of the Albury Chamber Music Festival.

The Orpheus Piano Trio is the Ensemble-in-Residence for the 2018 Albury Chamber Music Festival, which runs from November 16 to 18.

Sparks has given recitals in Japan, Hungary, Austria and throughout Australia.

She was a member of the esteemed Tokyo-Budapest Quartet, where she worked with Hungarian maestro and conductor Kalman Berkes.

Kernaghan said highlights of the 2018 concert series included Ravel’s Mother Goose Suite, which had been arranged for piano trio by composer Benjamin Martin.

She said the trio would be accompanied by narrator Kerryn Beatty, who would read the set of accompanying text Playing Fast and Loose with Mother Goose written by Australian author Peter Goldsworthy.

The trio will perform at the Wangaratta Uniting Church and Riverina Conservatorium of Music at Wagga.

Tickets are on sale at Touchstone Pianos, Wangaratta, or optwangaratta.floktu.com