The Amatis Trio was founded in Amsterdam in 2014 by German violinist Lea Hausmann, British cellist Samuel Shepherd and Dutch/Chinese pianist Mengjie Han.
Only weeks after forming, the trio won the audience prize in Amsterdam’s Grachtenfestival- Concours, which quickly led to their debut in Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw Hall – to which they returned in 2018/19 season as ECHO (European Concert Hall Organisation) Rising Stars artists.
Between 2016 – 2018 the Amatis Trio were selected by BBC Radio 3 on to the BBC New Generation Artists scheme. In Spring 2020 the Amatis were awarded a Fellowship from the Borletti-Buitoni Trust at the same time that their debut disc on the AVI label was released featuring works of Enescu, Britten and Ravel.
The Amatis Trio today emerges as one of the leading piano trios among the new generation. Their commitment to new music, bringing lesser known trio works to more prominence (as reflected in their debut disc) to education projects and bringing Western music to audiences less exposed has led the Trio to undertaking tours in 2018 to Abu Dhabi and India to where they would have returned (including to Mumbai’s National Centre for the Performing Arts) had the Corona Virus pandemic not prevented it. Also In 2020 the Trio were appointed to the Irene R. Miller Piano Trio Residency at the University of Toronto’s Faculty of Music and they are Resident Faculty Chamber Ensemble at Cambridge University.
After concluding their season as ECHO Rising Stars in 2019/20 season which saw the Trio perform in Europe’s major concert halls the Amatis Trio return to London’s Wigmore Hall, Edinburgh, Barcelona’s L’Auditori and Dortmund’s Konzerthaus. The Trio also appear for the Norfolk and Norwich, Champs Hill, and Malvern concert societies in the UK and make a return tour to Sweden.
Summer 2019 saw the Amatis Trio make their BBC Proms debut and with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra under the baton of Jamie Phillips at the 2019 Kings Lynn Festival. In an “Amatis and Friends” programme they made their 2019 Edinburgh International Festival debut. In 2020 the Trio will return to the Mecklenberg Vorpommern Festival.
The Amatis Trio’s commitment to contemporary music led to the foundation in 2015 of the ‘Dutch Piano Trio Composition Prize’. Encouraging young composers to expand the piano trio repertoire they have most recently premiered a piano trio, “Moorlands”, from swedish composer Andrea Tarrodi.
Since 2015 the trio has worked intensively with Wolfgang Redik (Vienna Piano Trio) and Rainer Schmidt (Hagen Quartet) and is currently enrolled in the Piano Trio Master Studies at the Mozarteum University in Salzburg. The Trio is part of the European Chamber Music Academy.
Other important musical influences include Hatto Beyerle, the Trio Jean Paul, Lukas Hagen, Fabio Bidini, Ilya Grubert, Anner Bylsma, Christian Schuster, Ib Hausmann, Imre Rohmann, Menahem Pressler and Sir András Schiff, with whom they worked at the Artists Academy Verbier.
Other prize-winning accolades include the 2018 Melbourne International Chamber Music Competition, the 2015 International Parkhouse Competition at the Wigmore Hall, 2nd prize winners of the International Joseph Joachim Competition in Weimar, Germany and they were named Dutch Classical Talent in 2015/2016.