NAVO Trio

Music for a Sunday Afternoon

NAVO Trio combines virtuosic talents of three internationally recognized musicians Margaret Marco (oboe), Véronique Mathieu (violin) and Ellen R. Sommer (piano) who promote works by female composers.

NAVO Trio combines the virtuosic talents of three internationally recognized musicians with careers that have taken them throughout North America, Central and South America, Europe, and Asia both as soloists and chamber musicians. Friends and collaborators for over a decade, NAVO (meaning “new”) Trio formed to research and promote music by female composers. Recent performances include the International Double Reed Society Conference in Mahidol, Thailand and the SHE: Festival of Women in Music conference in Fayetteville, AK. The trio was awarded the Barlow Prize to commission “A Wind of Dust” by Chinese Canadian composer Alice Ping Yee Ho. They also received a grant from the Wunsch Family New Music Fund to commission “The Great Circle” by Althea Talbot Howard. Both commissions will appear on their first CD expected to be released in spring 2024. Also on the upcoming CD are works by Elizabeth Jacquet de la Guerre, Dorothy Howell, Alex Shapiro and Anne Marie Guzzo.

Margaret Marco is the Professor of Oboe at the University of Kansas and principal oboist of the Kansas City Chamber Orchestra. A strong advocate for new music, she has received grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Mid-America Arts Alliance, Mu Phi Epsilon and the University of Kansas to perform and record new chamber works by American composers. 

Violinist Véronique Mathieu holds the David L. Kaplan Chair in Music at the University of Saskatchewan where she serves as an Associate Professor of Violin. She previously served on the faculty at the University of Kansas and State University of New York, in Buffalo. Her CD ARGOT was recently featured on a BBC series dedicated to the music of Lutoslawski and receives frequent airplay in the US.

Pianist Ellen R. Sommer is an internationally acclaimed collaborative pianist, chamber musician and coach. She is an Associate Professor of the Practice at the University of Kansas where she teaches collaborative piano. In addition, she serves as pianist/coach for the William Jewell College Vocal Artist Diploma program. She has a distinguished career as a recital pianist for artists such as Pierre Gennison, Demondrae Thurman, Alex Klein, Carol Jantsch, Misa Mead and Joyce Castle. Sommer collaborated with choral conductor, Simon Carrington of the King’s Singers from 1998-2004.

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