Dinin Arts Signs Lysander Piano Trio and Pianist Einav Yarden

Sarah Dinin, Founder and Director of Dinin Arts Management and Consulting, announces the signing of the Lysander Piano Trio and pianist Einav Yarden to its management roster. Effective immediately, the Lysander Piano Trio—comprising violinist Itamar Zorman, pianist Liza Stepanova, and cellist Michael Katz—joins Dinin Arts for worldwide general management. Einav Yarden joins the boutique agency for North American management.

Speaking from the Dinin Arts office in Milwaukee, Sarah Dinin commented, “I am absolutely thrilled to welcome these fabulous artists to the Dinin Arts roster. World-class artistry and collaborative success have always been top priorities for Dinin Arts’ roster, and these artists are no exception. In challenging times like these, we must embrace artistic excellence together with imaginative possibilities. The Lysander Piano Trio and pianist Einav Yarden have shown their respective ability to express both to the highest degree. As we approach a brighter future with more live performances, I am proud to represent them.”

The Lysander Piano Trio has been praised by The Strad for its “incredible ensemble, passionate playing, articulate and imaginative ideas and wide palette of colors” and by The Washington Post for “an uncommon degree of heart-on-the-sleeve emotional frankness” and “vivid engagement carried by soaring, ripely Romantic playing.” Beyond these endearing qualities, the group has developed a reputation for exciting programming, combining fresh interpretations of beloved master works from the canon with a passion for new music and discovering hidden gems of the repertoire. The Trio’s debut recording After A Dream (CAG Records) was acclaimed by The New York Times for its “polished and spirited interpretations.” Its next album, featuring world-premiere recordings of six works the ensemble has commissioned or premiered, is scheduled for release this fall with First Hand Records.

Highlights of the Trio's past two seasons include a return engagement at Atlanta’s premier chamber music series at Spivey Hall, a multi-concert residency with Chamber Music Tulsa, a weeklong series of performances and educational activities at New Orleans’s Crescent City Chamber Music Festival, and appearances at Bard Music Festival, National Sawdust, Calgary Pro Musica, Clemson University, Cooperstown Music Festival, Chamber Music Society of Melbourne (FL), Mobile Chamber Music, Norton Museum of Art, Wasserman Music Festival, and Pro Musica of San Miguel de Allende in Mexico. In addition, the ensemble performed in concerts and residencies across the United States as a featured touring group of Allied Concert Services. 

Celebrating its 10th anniversary in the 2020-21 season, the Lysander Piano Trio has spent the past decade performing around the US with appearances at the Kennedy Center’s Terrace Theater in Washington, DC; Los Angeles’ Clark Memorial Library at UCLA and the Da Camera Society; San Francisco’s Music at Kohl Mansion and Morrison Artist Series; Illinois’ Krannert Center, Rockford Coronado Concerts, and Dame Myra Hess Concerts in Chicago; the Kravis Center in West Palm Beach (FL); Middlebury College (VT); Purdue University’s Convocations Series (IN); the Chamber Music Society of Little Rock (AR); and Juneau Jazz and Classics (AK).  Summer and festival appearances include the Copenhagen Summer Festival, The Chautauqua Institution, Princeton University Summer Chamber Concerts, and a critically acclaimed recital at the Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington. Among special projects, the Trio recently collaborated with clarinetist Charles Neidich in a unique program presented by the Chamber Music Society of Philadelphia and Lincoln Friends of Chamber Music (NE). Orchestral engagements include Beethoven’s Triple Concerto with the DuPage Symphony Orchestra, University of Wyoming Symphony Orchestra and Greenwich Village Orchestra in New York City. 

The Lysander Piano Trio has frequently performed in its hometown of New York City. The New York Times lauded the ensemble’s Weill Recital Hall debut at Carnegie Hall as “…rich sound and nuanced musicianship…resulting in a finely hued collaboration among the three musicians.” Other notable New York dates are Lincoln Center’s Alice Tully Hall and David Rubinstein Atrium, Schneider Concerts Chamber Music Series at the New School, Merkin Concert Hall, and the Mostly Mozart Festival’s 50th Anniversary season at David Geffen Hall.

The Trio has a long-standing commitment to working with living composers and building a new repertoire for piano trio. The ensemble’s commissions include Gilad Cohen, Reinaldo Moya; Jakub Ciupinski, and pre-teen composers of ComposerCraft from NYC’s Kaufman Music Center. Lysander members also premiered Jennifer Higdon’s Love Sweet for soprano and piano trio, a work that will receive its world-premiere recording on the group’s upcoming album performed with acclaimed soprano Sarah Shafer.

The Lysander Piano Trio, named for the character in Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream,  was formed at The Juilliard School in 2009. The Trio, received top honors at the 2010 Fischoff National Chamber Music Competition, the 2011 Coleman Chamber Ensemble Competition (Grand Prize), and the 2011 J. C. Arriaga Chamber Music Competition (First Prize). The Trio was previously managed by Concert Artists Guild after winning the CAG Victor Elmaleh Competition in 2012.

Pianist Einav Yarden is praised for her “imagination and exceptionally vivid playing…sense of immense majesty, tempered by gentleness and quiet grace” (The Washington Post, USA), and “glistening rapture…ingenious humor” (Tagesspiegel, Germany). She has been regularly presented in recital at important venues around the world and as soloist with orchestras including the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra, Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin (and the Rundfunkchor Berlin), Minnesota Orchestra, Calgary Philharmonic, Beethoven Orchester Bonn, Bradenburgisches Staatsorchester Frankfurt, Bucharest Philharmonic, and Jerusalem Symphony, under conductors such as Sir Neville Marriner, Leon Botstein, Frédéric Chaslin, Stefan Blunier, Aldo Ceccato, Mendi Rodan, and Simon Halsey, among others.

Her US engagements over the past two seasons included successful solo recitals at the 92nd Street Y in NYC, Philadelphia Chamber Music Society, and Performance Santa Fe, as well as a postponed tour, originally scheduled for May 2020, that included solo performances at Ravinia, South Windsor Cultural Arts in Connecticut, and The Sheldon in St. Louis. In July 2018, she a gave a solo performance at the Margravial Opera House in Bayreuth, subbing in for the international star Daniil Trifonov with just a few hours’ notice, and left the audience “deeply overjoyed and impressed” (PIANONews, Germany). Other noteworthy stages on which she has performed include the Rose Theater of Jazz at Lincoln Center in New York; the Phillips Collection in Washington; the Berlin Philharmonie and the Philharmonie Chamber Music Hall, and Konzerthaus Berlin; the Beethoven-Haus Bonn; Schumannsaal in Düsseldorf; Muziekgebouw in Amsterdam; Salle Cortot and the Musée d’Orsay Auditorium in Paris, and others.

In 2018 Einav Yarden released her third CD for Challenge Classics, with solo piano works by Schumann. The recording received widespread international acclaim. Her 2016 album release of Haydn sonatas on Challenge Classics was awarded the quarterly German Record Critics’ Award (Pres der Deutsche Schallplattenkritik), selected as CD-of-the-Month for Germany’s leading PIANONews magazine, and received enthusiastic press internationally. Her first release with Challenge Classics, “Oscillations”, which combines works by Beethoven and Stravinsky, also received international praise. Her performances and recordings have been broadcast on prominent classical stations in the US, Canada, England, Israel, and throughout most of Europe.

A passionate chamber musician, she devotes herself regularly to collaborations with other musicians and enthusiastically incorporates unique repertoire into her programs. Major festival appearances include the Ravinia Festival, Ruhr Piano Festival (Germany), Verbier Festival (Switzerland), La Roque d’Anthéron International Piano Festival, Menton Festival, and Flâneries Musicales de Reims Festival (France), Jerusalem International Chamber Music Festival, and Upper-Galilee Chamber Music Festival (Israel), and others.

Among Einav Yarden’s competition awards are top prizes at the International Beethoven Piano Competition in Bonn, Canada’s Esther Honens International Piano Competition, and top prizes at the Aviv Competitions in Israel, where she was awarded the Guralnik and the Zilbermann Prize for best performance of a contemporary work, performing Avner Dorman’s Piano Sonata No. 2, which was written for her.

She was a longtime student of the renowned pianist Leon Fleisher at the Peabody Conservatory (Johns Hopkins University) in Baltimore, earning a Master of Music with high honors and a Graduate Performance Diploma. Prior to this, she received a Bachelor of Music with high honors from the Buchmann-Mehta School of Music at Tel Aviv University under the instruction of Emanuel Krasovsky. She is based in Berlin.