Black Oak Ensemble Joins Princeton Symphony Orchestra Chamber Series This Month

The Black Oak Ensemble performs Thursday, March 20 at 7pm on the Princeton Symphony Orchestra (PSO)'s new chamber music series at Trinity Church. On the program are an arrangement of the aria from Johann Sebastian Bach's Goldberg Variations, BWV 988, Vittorio Monti's Csárdás, based on a Hungarian folk dance, and trios by Gideon Klein, Jean Cras, and Henri Tomasi.

The Black Oak Ensemble consists of violinist Desirée Ruhstrat and cellist David Cunliffe, members of the GRAMMY-nominated Lincoln Trio, and violist Aurélien Fort Pederzoli, a founding member of the ground-breaking, GRAMMY-nominated Spektral Quartet. 

One of the most innovative and exciting chamber ensembles on the international stage, the Black Oak Ensemble are the 2023 winners of the American Prize in Chamber Music Performance and the International Chamber Music Award. Black Oak's latest CD, Avant l'orage, a double album of French string trios, reached #1 in the Billboard Classical Charts in July 2022.

Black Oak's début album on Cedille Records, Silenced Voices, is dedicated to Jewish composers, most of whom lost their lives during the Holocaust. Recent international tours have taken the Black Oak Ensemble to Amsterdam, Geneva, the Everlasting Hope Festival in Terezin, Paris, Grenoble, Athens, and other major cities. In the U.S., they have appeared at the Newport Music Festival, Ravinia Festival, Chicago Cultural Center, Art Institute of Chicago, and many other venues. They made their New York début in 2022 at the Morgan Museum.

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