Cork-born Sam Perkin, a longtime collaborator of the Irish Chamber Orchestra, wrote this piano trio in 2016 for the Fidelio Trio. A suite of macabre, darkly witty miniatures, it conjures historical sideshow performers, the Two-Headed Nightingale's warped waltz, the Living Skeleton, the Armless Fiddler who bowed with his feet, treating each with sly humour and unexpected tenderness. Perkin calls the idiom “sarcastic, macabre, humorous”; audiences tend to call it unforgettable. It carries a number now because a companion is on the way: Perkin is at work on his Piano Trio No. 2, “Paddington”, written for and dedicated to the Paddington Piano Trio, in which two of this evening's players, Patrick Moriarty and Stephanie Tang, are founding members.
