Trio Brontë was founded in Berlin in 2022 and consists of German-Italian violinist Chiara Sannicandro, Bulgarian pianist Lili Bogdanova, and American cellist Annie Jacobs-Perkins. In 2025 the trio spent two weeks at Snape Maltings as part of the Britten Pears Arts Young Artist Programme. Here they describe their experience and the impact it has had on their development as a group.

“We are a piano trio made up of nature lovers, history lovers, craft lovers, early music lovers, dog lovers, and chamber music lovers. There really could not have been a more perfect place for us than the Britten Pears Young Artist Programme at Aldeburgh/Snape Maltings.

We applied to the Britten Pears Young Artist Programme as a relatively new trio, with the goal of giving ourselves two weeks to hone our craft, continue to get to know each other better, get performance practice as we prepared for some competitions this season, meet new audiences, and to get new ideas from a few intense days of coaching. We had no idea exactly how much we would fall in love with this place and its history over the course of the two weeks we spent at the BPYAP.

When we arrived in Aldeburgh we had a quite stressful competition on the immediate horizon –immediately after finishing our two week residency we flew to Graz, Austria for the Franz Schubert and Modern Music Competition. For this we needed to have three rounds of music very well prepared, including huge standard works like Schubert’s Bb Piano Trio as well as a challenging new commission by Xiaowen Lei. We were lucky enough to win First prize and a special prize of a CD production at this competition, and this is largely due to the fact that we were able to spend two weeks rehearsing in a focused, intense way away from the distractions of everyday life.

In many ways, our time at Britten Pears felt like one long rehearsal. We left every morning at 9.30am –some nights when we were lucky we got home at 6pm, and on others when we really went crazy and felt we needed the extra time, we stayed until 8 or 9pm (everybody at BPYAP was so accommodating to help us adapt the schedule to best suit us and make the most of our time). Of course, we did find other ways to distract ourselves…sandwiched in between these rehearsals were frequent trips to Malt Café, the craft shop, the early music shop, the antique shop, and to the kitchen for what was described in our itinerary as, “a constant stream of coffee, tea, and biscuits.” Chiara was a fan of the bourbon biscuits, Annie was a fan of the custard creams, and Lili couldn’t decide which she liked better. Annie, the most exuberant dog lover of the three of us, was especially excited that Malt Café allowed dogs inside, and that they even sold dog biscuits at the counter (by the end of the trio visit Annie had a dog biscuit in her coat pocket at all times).”

“We are in fact Quintet Brontë in a way; our trips are a real family affair. Lili, our pianist, has an adorable one-year-old daughter named Luisa. Luisa and Michael (Lili’s husband and a composer) often come with us on trio trips. We all celebrated Luisa’s first birthday during our time at the BPYAP, which was extra special because Luisa has developed a real taste for fish. For her birthday dinner we went to the We Smoke Fish hut and brought a selection back to Elizabeth Court to cook dinner. Luisa’s favorite was the cod. Lili and Annie both were big fans of the crayfish, and Michi’s favorite was the smoked haddock. Chiara thinks we’re all nuts, as she is not the greatest admirer of seafood.

Visiting The Red House was a particular highlight for us, as Britten is one of our favorite composers. Annie and Lili got very excited to learn more about the Britten Cello Sonata, as they recently played it together last May. Chiara was especially excited to see the manuscript of Peter Grimes (she is also a big lover of the string quartets and the violin concerto). Annie thought that the grapes given to Britten by Rostropovich were very cool, and she is also very jealous of the fruit orchard on the premises.

We took an afternoon off during our first weekend to take a walk through the marshes and along the sea from Aldeburgh to Thorpeness. Along the way we collected pebbles, drank coffee, and sampled different quiches, tarts, and shortbreads. At the very end of our walk, Michael and Annie went for a swim (that description is a bit generous – it was more of a quick dip) in the sea. We then warmed ourselves up by going to a pub together and sitting in front of a fire.”

“We feel so lucky to have gotten the chance to work with cellist David Waterman for a few days. One of the best parts of the BPYAP in our eyes was the ability to pick a mentor of our choice. Chiara had worked with David before at Prussia Cove, and told us how helpful and informative his lessons had been. Now that all three of us have worked with him, we wholeheartedly agree! David came to Snape Maltings for three days near the end of our rehearsal period, and in this time we played most of the repertoire we had prepared for him: Shostakovich Trio No. 1, Schubert Bb Trio, Mendelssohn C Minor Trio, and Schubert Notturno. He helped us to question ourselves, trust ourselves, and listen to one another with as much attention as we could muster.

We feel so lucky to have been a part of this wonderful program, and are dreaming of the day we might be able to come back to Aldeburgh! Thank you to everyone at Britten Pears for making this experience so positive.”

Find out more about the Britten Pears Young Artist Programme.