Being a member of one of the most sought-after chamber groups in the country can be stressful, but it also has its rewards.
Just ask Sara Sant'Ambrogio, cellist in the Eroica Trio."Our career has just exploded in the last couple of years," Sant'Ambrogio said during a telephone interview from her home in Manhattan. "We're doing 90 concerts this season. That gives us about four days at home a month. It's a bit insane."
At the same time, however, they love what they're doing and can't imagine doing anything else.
"This is the most fun we've had in our lives," Sant'Ambrogio admits. "We share the same commitment and dedication, and we work so hard to keep the music we play fresh and new.
"There's no ego involved here. We do what's best for (our music). We give 120 percent to make our performances great each time."
The Eroica Trio (which also includes violinist Adela Pena and pianist Erika Nickrenz) will perform tonight at 8 p.m. in the Museum of Fine Arts Auditorium on the University of Utah campus. Tickets are $15 and available at the door. The trio, sponsored by the Utah Arts Council, will also give concerts in Logan, Ogden and St. George during the upcoming week.
For the Salt Lake City performance, the group will play Mozart's Trio in C major, Joaquin Turina's Trio No. 2 in D minor and Schubert's Trio No. 1 in B flat major.
"We've resurrected some lesser-known works for trio," Sant'Ambrogio says, "including the Turina. We like to rediscover works that have been forgotten. We do that as much for self-preservation as for the audience's sake."
But one of the works the Eroica has had success with in the past few years isn't part of the program. The three musicians love doing Beethoven's Triple Concerto. "It's a real showpiece, and we have such fun doing it.
"We did it a couple of weeks ago with the St. Louis Symphony. We played four concerts there and sold out every night.
"My dad is principal cello with the St. Louis, and while we were playing (the concerto), I would look over at him from time to time and he'd wink at me. It was fun."
(However, the Eroica Trio will return to Utah on May 7 and 8 to perform the Triple Concerto with the Utah Symphony under Pavel Kogan.)
"One of our strengths," Sant'Ambrogioi explains, "is that we're so fluid as performers. We take that fluidity and work with it. And that has also held us together for 13 years now. We understand
each other."
The three artists have been playing together as a trio since 1986 but they've known each other much longer than that. "Erika and Adela started playing together as a duo when they were nine years old. I started playing with Erika when I was 12, and with Adela when I was 15. People used to tell us that we should form a trio but we didn't form the Eroica till we were students at Juilliard."
In spite of their busy schedule, the three musicians are also actively involved in bringing music to schools, homeless shelters and retirement centers.
Sant'Ambrogio relates an incident that happened last year, which vividly shows the importance of music in people's lives: "We played a homeless shelter for the mentally disturbed. There was a lot of hostility from the people at the beginning. But as we played, we could see all their cares and worries slipping from their shoulders.
"After the concert a woman came up and told us in a heavy Southern drawl, 'I didn't think I was going to like all this high-falutin music you were going to play. But I must be high-falutin myself, because I loved it.' "