5/23/2022 Performing at ”The Avant,” a retirement home, in Palo Alto, CA

My piano trio group, MONATS-Trio, performed at ”The Avant,” a retirement home in Palo Alto yesterday afternoon (Sunday, May 22). We played the same program twice, first at Independent Living quarter then at Assisted Living quarter. The program ran about one hour; "Oblivion" by Piazzolla and "Piano Trio in C minor op. 66" by Mendelssohn. The Avant has good-size halls in Independent Living and Assisted Living buildings adjacent to their main entrances, and each is equipped with a decent grand piano. There are about 20-25 residents-audience came to listen to our performance at each hall. Some are on wheelchairs, and some are independent. They are pleasant and welcoming audience, who obviously love music. They gave us a lot of encouraging applauses. We will visit them again in the summer.

About Us (amature music enthusiasts):

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Emi Igarashi (violin)

Emi was born in Tokyo and began violin lessons when she was seven. She studied with Mr. Shiro Sumi in Tokyo when she was a teenager. She plays ensembles with musicians in the U.S. and Japan. She plays a violin commissioned to a local luthier, Lawrence Houssler (2016, Palo Alto, California), and one by François Lejeune (1775, Paris, France).

Dr. Steffen Luitz (cello)

Steffen, the rock of the trio, was born in Germany and has broad experience in playing in a university orchestra and various local chamber music groups in Germany, France, and the U.S. He is a physicist working at SLAC in Menlo Park, California.

Norman Furuta (piano)

A retired attorney, Norm studied piano during his grammar school years in Southern California and started playing chamber music as a way of taking his mind off the grind of law school. His retirement forty years later has enabled Norm to re-engage with his chamber music friends in the Bay Area. Norm’s latest obsession is tracking down and playing arrangements of the four Brahms symphonies for violin, cello, and piano.