Astatine Trio
RPS Henderson Chamber Ensemble Award | £5,000
Since its formation in 2021, Astatine Trio has emerged as one of the UK’s most exciting young ensembles, most recently being named BBC Radio 3 New Generation Artists for 2025-27. They were awarded second prize at the 2025 Franz Schubert and Modern Music Competition in Graz, as well as the prize for best performance of the Composition Competition’s prize-winning piano trio. Their other accolades include first prizes at the Birmingham International Piano Chamber Music Competition, Virtuoso & Belcanto International Chamber Competition in Lucca, Italy, and the Senior Intercollegiate Piano Trio Competition in 2022. They also won the SEAM Prize for contemporary music at the 2023 Lyon International Chamber Competition, as the youngest finalists.
The trio are currently Hans Keller Chamber Fellows at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, a resident ensemble at ProQuartet – Centre Européen de Musique de Chambre (Paris) for the 2025-27 seasons, and Kirckman Concert Society artists for 2025-26.
From 2022-25 the trio benefited from the mentorship of legendary pianist Alfred Brendel, at his personal invitation. Currently, they are being mentored by Anthony Marwood through ChamberStudio, where they are Fellows for 2025-26, and are a member ensemble of the European Chamber Academy.
Astatine Trio write:
‘We are so honoured to have been awarded the RPS Henderson Chamber Ensemble Award this year! The funds will enable us to bring to life passion projects which we have wanted to explore for a while. These include a celebration of Beethoven's bicentenary in 2027, a concert series exploring the relationship between the trios of Wolfgang Rihm and Robert Schumann and, in the longer term, a chamber music festival in our hometown of Brighton. We will also be able to invest in our studies and development as a group, something we feel is incredibly important.
We also plan to produce high quality recordings of our performances using professional equipment, helping us reach a wider audience online with an enhanced watching and listening experience. We’re very aware that not everyone has the means to attend live concerts so would love to create a larger digital library of our performances, including exploring ‘music video’ style content, to make the music more accessible and engaging to those less familiar with classical music.
We're so excited to start working on all these plans thanks to this generous help from the RPS and the Henderson family. We couldn't be more grateful for their support!'