New Zealand Soprano Anna Leese is a graduate of the University of Otago, the Royal College of Music and the Benjamin Britten International Opera School. Her many awards include the 2005 Richard Tauber Prize. Recent concert engagements have included Mahler’s second symphony with Bernard Haitink, Vaughan Williams’s Sea Symphony with the Malaysian Philharmonic, Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 in Madrid with Carlo Rizzi, and Elijah with the BBC National Orchestra of Wales, conducted by Thierry Fischer. She made her debut at the 2006 BBC Proms with the Scottish Chamber Orchestra and Sir Roger Norrington, and has appeared in a number of opera gala concerts with José Carreras. Her recordings include a debut recital disc for EMI with Graham Johnson, and a Haydn disc on the Michael Storrs Music label. Anna Leese made her Covent Garden debut as Tamiri (Il re pastore), returning for Musetta (La bohème), Micaela (Carmen), First Lady (Die Zauberflöte) and Echo (Ariadne). For the New Zealand Opera she has sung Ilia in Mozart’s Idomeneo, Cleopatra in Giulio Cesare and Tatyana in Eugene Onegin. She has sung Biancofiore in Francesca da Rimini and Suzel in L’amico Fritz for Opera Holland Park, Antonia in Hoffmann for the Cologne Opera and Tatyana for the Flanders Opera, and she made her North American debut with the Canadian Opera Company as Musetta. Anna Leese is an Associate Artist of the Classical Opera Company. Other engagements include Leila in Pearlfishers for Opera Holland Park, Majenka (The Bartered Bride) and Donna Elvira (Don Giovanni) for the New Zealand Opera, and concerts with the Auckland Philharmonic Orchestra and City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra.

The Gould Piano Trio, recently compared to the great Beaux Arts Trio for its “musical fire” and dedication to the genre in The Washington Post, has remained at the forefront of the international chamber music scene for well over twenty years. Launched by its first prize at the Melbourne Chamber Music Competition and subsequently selected as YCAT Artists, it toured in Europe and the USA as “Rising Stars” and made a highly successful debut at the Weill Recital Hall, described by Strad Magazine as “Pure Gould”. The trio’s appearances at London’s Wigmore Hall include the complete piano trios by Dvorak and Schubert and in the 2017–18 season a Beethoven cycle. At St George’s, Bristol, it performed and recorded these trios live for SOMM Records, arguably the pinnacle of the trio repertoire.

Its discography not only includes the renowned masterpieces of the repertoire but also many hidden gems, brought to life through an ongoing collaboration with clarinettist Robert Plane.
Trio cycles by Hummel (Naxos), Dvorak (Champs Hill Records) and Brahms have been complemented by the late romantic works of Charles Villiers Stanford, John Ireland, Robin Milford, Cyril Scott and Arnold Bax many of which are in world premiere recordings. A disc of contemporary works by Peter Maxwell Davies, Sally Beamish and James MacMillan (Champs Hill Records) was released in 2015 helping to bring contemporary British music to an international public.

Through its annual festivals in Corbridge, now in its nineteenth year, and Cardiff at the Royal Welsh College of Music & Drama, where the trio is Artist in Residence and recently were made Fellows, the Gould Piano Trio takes inspiration from playing a wide range of chamber music with colleagues in Oxford, and coaching aspiring young ensembles. Giving masterclasses at Dartington Hall and Aldeburgh have been rewarding ways of passing on their years of experience.

The trio has been given the opportunity, as Artistic Directors of the 2017–18 Leeds International Chamber Season, to curate a series of six concerts using invited artists as well as themselves to perform works from pre- Revolutionary Russia.

The Trio has been keen to commission new works: James MacMillan’s Piano Trio No.2, premiered to much acclaim at the Bath International Festival in 2014, Simon Rowland-Jones’ Piano Trio No.2 Eidfjord in 2016, a new trio from Mark Simpson After Avedon, and a clarinet quartet by Huw Watkins.

The Trio is delighted that the Simpson, being part of the PRS Beyond Borders scheme, has been chosen for the New Music Biennial in Hull (and at the South Bank in London) as part of the City of Culture celebrations in 2017, a fitting way to mark the 25th anniversary of this renowned ensemble the Gould Piano Trio.