The Amity Trio, a chamber ensemble featuring soprano Katie Walker, pianist Kim Carballo and French horn player Mike Walker, will bring their program of contemporary music to the Sunflower Theatre in Cortez on Friday, June 20 at 7:30 p.m.
The trio was formed in 2018, and the members shared that they are dedicated to promoting works by living, underrepresented composers in order to amplify diverse artistic voices through performances, education and community engagement.
“Amity Trio’s mission is to contribute to a more equitable distribution of artistic voices on a global scale by performing music by underrepresented composers, for a variety of audience interests, locations and socioeconomic strata,” Mike Walker told The Journal.
“To accomplish this mission, Amity Trio offers creative programming in traditional and nontraditional venues, seeks out meaningful interdisciplinary collaborations, pursues deeper cultural understanding and is a catalyst in the musical dissemination cycle of commissions, performances, recordings, community engagement and education,” he said. “The trio members had worked with one another prior to our formation, and we were all friends, so we thought it would be fun to make it official.”
This concert, themed around the nature of love, marks their first appearance at the Sunflower Theatre.
Based partly in Albuquerque and Bloomington, Indiana, the Amity Trio collaborates remotely, reuniting for performances and teaching engagements.
Mike shared that the group found out about the Sunflower Theatre through some contacts at the San Juan Symphony
“We are hoping to connect with our audience in this beautiful and intimate venue; can’t wait to hear the acoustics,” Walker said.
The trio’s Cortez program explores love in its many forms: romantic, familial, self-love and cultural devotion, through a curated selection of theme-and-variation pieces.
The Amity Trio’s formation stemmed from the members’ prior collaborations and shared passion for promoting underrepresented voices.
“There is so much beautiful music out there and we want to make sure everyone can hear it. Amity Trio’s vision is to provide a vital microphone for otherwise muted voices to begin to be heard,” Walker said. “By being a catalyst for creative engagement with new audiences and underrepresented voices, we can provide a legacy of commissions, performances, recordings and cultural exchange. The Triowill challenge the status quo of musical canon by collaborating with world-class living composers, artists, writers and performers to produce relevant repertoire with staying power.”
The trio hopes to leave the audience inspired by the beauty and relevance of contemporary music.
“Our hope is that our audience will come away feeling inspired about the incredible music they heard,” Mike said. “This concert is a theme and variations on the notion of love itself, turning the idea love over and seeing it from all its angles, in all its guises: romantic love, familial love, false love, self-love and love of one’s culture. As a whole, the works we’ve selected invite us to consider how deep love goes, how we can find love in all facets of our lives and how profound it is to be able to profess love.”
Tickets for the concert are available through the Sunflower Theatre’s website at www.sunflowertheatre.org or at the venue’s box office. Early booking is recommended due to the theater’s limited seating.
More information can be found by contacting the Sunflower Theatre at (970) 565-9127 or visiting www.sunflowertheatre.org and the trio’s website at www.amitytrio.com.
