The Capital Trio consists of Hilary Cumming, Duncan Cumming '93 and Şölen Dikener.

A pair of piano trios punctuate Bates College concert offerings next month, with the Capital Trio performing at 7:30 p.m. Friday, March 9, and the Vienna Piano Trio appearing at 7:30 p.m. Thursday, March 29.

Both concerts take place in the Olin Arts Center Concert Hall, 75 Russell St. The Capital Trio event is open to the public at no cost, but tickets are required due to limited seating. Tickets for the Vienna Piano Trio concert, which has been rescheduled from March 23, are $6 and available at www.batestickets.com.

For March 9 tickets and for more information, please contact 786-6135 or olinarts@bates.edu.

The Capital Trio’s program consists of the Sonata in D major for Violin and Piano, Op. 12, No. 1, by Beethoven; “For Jonathan Kramer  (2005-2010),” a piece for piano trio, loudspeaker and computer by Bill Matthews, Alice Swanson Esty Professor of Music at Bates; and Brahms’ Piano Trio in B major, Op. 8. More about the Capital Trio.

The Vienna Piano Trio, meanwhile, will perform Haydn’s Trio in E-flat minor, Hob. XVI/31 (“Jacob’s Dream”); Schoenberg’s “Verklärte Nacht,” arranged for piano trio; and Beethoven’s Piano Trio in B-flat major, Op. 97 (“Archduke”). More about the Vienna Piano Trio.

The Capital Trio consists of Hilary Cumming, Duncan Cumming '93 and Şölen Dikener.

Pianist Duncan Cumming ’93 returns to his alma mater for a performance with his Capital Trio at 7:30 p.m. Friday, March 9, in the Olin Arts Center Concert Hall, 75 Russell St.

The event is open to the public at no cost, but tickets are required due to limited seating. For tickets and for more information, please contact 786-6135 or olinarts@bates.edu.

The Capital Trio consists of 1993 Bates graduate Duncan Cumming, pianist; violinist Hilary Cumming; and cellist Sölen Dikener. Their Bates program includes a work by Bill Matthews, Alice Swanson Esty Professor of Music at Bates.

The trio began as the Cecilia Piano Trio in 1997. Founding and current members Duncan Cumming, pianist, and Sölen Dikener, cellist, were surprised to discover at their first rehearsal that their teachers, Frank Glazer and Paul Tortelier, had performed together in Paris and Boston almost 70 years earlier and the young performers immediately became friends.

Violinist Hilary Cumming joined the group in 1999. A review from the Kalamazoo (Michigan) Gazette described the trio as “convincing both as strong individual musical personalities and as a cohesive unit.” 2011 saw the release of their first compact disc recording on Albany Records, A Book of Hours: Music of William Matthews. Of this recording Fanfare Magazine wrote, “The Capital Trio plays throughout with clarity, precision and manifest musicality…”

The Trio enjoyed its first International tour in May 2011, performing in England, France and Switzerland.

Duncan Cumming, now in his seventh year on the faculty of the University at Albany, has performed concertos, recitals and chamber music concerts across the United States and in Europe. A recent review describes his playing as “technically flawless… thoughtful, deliberate and balanced, without a wasted gesture or any histrionics, rather like Rachmaninoff.”

Born in Maine, Cumming graduated Phi Beta Kappa with highest honors from Bates in 1993, where he studied with artist in residence Frank Glazer. He has premiered and recorded new works for solo piano, violin and piano, and piano trio.

Hilary Walther Cumming teaches at the University at Albany. Previously she served as concertmaster of the Cape Cod Sinfonietta and the Andover Chamber Orchestra, and has performed as soloist with these ensembles as well as others including the Boston Symphony Orchestra. A versatile artist, she is comfortable in many styles including classical, baroque and Irish traditional music.

Dikener performs and teaches in the U.S. and in Turkey, where he is the director of the international summer music academy and chamber music festival Akademi Datca. In the recording studio, Dikener has premiered cello works by Turkish composers for the AK Muzik and Yesa labels.

Pianist Duncan Cumming ’93 returns to his alma mater with violinist Hilary Cumming, his wife, to perform works of Schubert, Brahms and Dvorák at 7:30 p.m. Friday, Oct. 2, in the Olin Arts Center Concert Hall, 75 Russell St.

The program also includes Duo, a composition by William Matthews, Alice Swanson Esty Professor of Music at Bates. Admission is free, but tickets are required. For ticket reservations or more information, please contact 207-786-6135 or this olinarts@bates.edu.

Cumming is a Maine native, born in Presque Isle and raised in Wiscasset. He graduated with highest honors from Bates in 1993. His playing has been described by the Portland Press Herald as “technically flawless, thoughtful, deliberate and balanced.” Cumming has performed in some of the most prestigious concert halls in the United States and Europe including the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C.; Merkin Hall and Carnegie Recital Hall in New York City; and the Wallenstein Palace in Prague, Czech Republic. In 2009, he received a grant to record music of Mozart and Weber on Weber’s own 1812 Brodmann fortepiano.

Also this year, Cumming’s book, The Fountain of Youth: The Artistry of Frank Glazer (Tower Books) was published. This book is a portrait of the Bates artist in residence, an internationally renowned pianist, who taught Cumming.

Cumming received a master’s degree in 1996 from the New England Conservatory, and in 2003 earned a doctorate from Boston University. He is a member of the faculties of Boston University’s Tanglewood Institute and the University at Albany.

Hilary Cumming studied at the Royal Conservatory of Music in Copenhagen, Denmark, and has performed around the world. An adjunct professor of violin at the University at Albany, her most recent CD recording was made in August 2008 with the Musicians of the Old Post Road and is available from Meridien Records.

Along with the cellist Sölen Dikener, the Cummings constitute the Capital Piano Trio, the ensemble in residence at the University at Albany. The Cummings have two daughters and a son.

Frank Glazer, a resident artist at Bates College since 1980 and arguably Maine’s best-known pianist, is joined by his former student Duncan Cumming ’93 for an evening of music by Brahms, Dvorák and others at 8:15 p.m. Thursday, June 6, in the Olin Arts Center Concert Hall, 75 Russell Street. The concert is free and open to the public.

Cumming, a native of Presque Isle, teaches at Phillips Academy, in Andover, Mass., and performs as a solo pianist and a member of the Cecilia Trio. He began studying with Glazer in his teens and the two have worked together since. Their 1997 survey of the Brahms solo piano literature at Bates was a highlight in the annals of Maine music.

The pair will perform Brahms’ “Variations on a Theme by Haydn,” Op. 56b; Schubert’s “Andantino Varié in B minor on French Motifs,” Op. 84, No. 1; two entries from Dvorák’s “Slavonic Dances,” the Op. 72, No. 2, and the Op. 46, No. 8; and an adaptation of Strauss’ popular “Blue Danube” Waltzes.

Glazer is an artist of international stature who taught at the Eastman School of Music for 15 years before retiring to Maine with his wife, Ruth, in 1980. The couple founded the Saco River Festival, which is held in Cornish every summer. A student of pianist Artur Schnabel in the 1930s and ’40s, Glazer is one of the few remaining proteges of that great musician.

Glazer’s long career includes numerous recordings, his own television program in the 1950s and countless solo recitals and performances with orchestras and chamber ensembles, including the New England Piano Quartette, of which he was a founder.

For more information about the performance, please call 207-786-6135.

He also continues to perform in England where he has given recitals annually since 1992. He is currently on faculty at Phillips Academy in Andover, Mass., and a member of the Cecelia Trio. Cumming was born in Aroostook County and grew up in Wiscassett.

The program will include excerpts from Fantasie in D minor by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Sonata in C major, Op. 1, by Johannes Brahms, and Sports et Divertissements by Erik Satie, as well as works by Debussy and Chopin.

For more information, call the Olin Arts Center at 207-786-6135.

The July 13 concert features works by Mozart and Chopin as well as a composition by David Walther Jr. The July 15 concert features piano quartets of Beethoven and Brahms. Special guests David Walther Jr., viola, and reader Dave Bunker, music director and producer of the Maine Public Radio program “Morning Classical Music,” will join the St. Cecilia Trio in a performance of “Round a Common Center” by Lukas Foss, with text by W.H. Auden. The July 17 concert features cellist Dikener and pianist Cumming performing works by J.S. Bach, Chopin and Piazzolla.

The St. Cecilia Trio performances at Bates are made possible by the Florence Pennell Gremley Endowment Fund, given by Florence Pennell Gremley, Bates class of 1925, in memory of her parents, Walter J. Pennell and Lelia Goff Pennell, members of the Bates classes of 1890 and 1893, respectively.

The trio, composed of violinist Scott Esty, Bates class of ’92; cellist Solen Dikener; and pianist Duncan Cumming, Bates class of ’93, will present a concert of American music sandwiched between two all-Beethoven programs.

The series begins Saturday, Aug. 8, with the first Beethoven program, including Violin Sonata in D major, Op. 12, No. 1; Cello Sonata in C major, Op. 102, No.1; and Piano Trio in D major, Op. 70, No. 1 (Ghost Trio).

On Tuesday, Aug. 11, Dikener and Esty will perform Triptych, composed by William Matthews, the Alice Swanson Esty Professor of Music at Bates. Cumming will perform the piano solo Epitaph also by Matthews, and the trio will perform Piano Trio, a third work by Matthews. Dvorak’s Piano Trio, Op. 90, concludes the program.

On Friday, Aug. 14, a second Beethoven program includes Cello Sonata in A major, Op. 69; Piano Trio in G major, Op. 1, No. 2; and Violin Sonata in A major, Op. 47 (Kreutzer).

A native of Washington, D.C., violinist Esty received a master of arts degree from the University of Ann Arbor Michigan. As a soloist, he has performed with orchestras throughout the country. Currently, he serves as assistant concertmaster of the Kalamazoo Symphony Orchestra (KSO) and also is a member of the KSO String Quartet.

Dikener performs regularly as the principal cellist of the KSO and as a member of the KSO String Quartet. He is a doctoral candidate in musical arts from Michigan State University and also serves as the executive director of the Young Strings Academy in Kalamazoo, Mich. Before coming to the United States, Dikener studied with Paul Tortelier in France and attended the Academy of Music in Vienna. He earned his chamber music degree from the Conservatoire Nationale de Nice in France. In his native Turkey, he served as principal cellist of the Ankara Chamber Orchestra as well as a faculty member in cello performance and chamber music at Hacettepe University. He has performed numerous times with all major Turkish orchestras.

A resident of Boston, Cumming is a frequent collaborator in double concerto, two-piano and four-hand repertoire with Frank Glazer. While a student at Bates, Cumming made his professional debut as a concerto soloist with the Maine Chamber Ensemble. In May 1996, he received a master’s degree in piano performance from the New England Conservatory. As both a concerto soloist and recitalist, he has performed throughout the United States, including an appearance at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. Cumming performs annually in England and will perform all of the sonatas for violin and piano by Beethoven in a series of three concerts at Phillips Academy in Andover, Mass., where he is a performer and faculty member.

For more information about the Brahms concert series, call the Olin Arts Center at 207-786-6135.

The program features “Variations on a Theme by Paganini, Op. 35, Books I and II;” Waltzes, Op. 39; Piano Pieces, Op. 76 and Two Rhapsodies, Op. 79.

The final concert in the series will be held at 7:30 p.m. Dec. 3, in the Olin Arts Center Concert Hall and will feature “Fantasien, Op. 116;” Three Intermezzi, Op. 117 and Piano Pieces, Op. 118 and Op. 119.

For more information about the Brahms concert series, call the Olin Arts Center at 207-786-6135.

Cumming graduated Phi Beta Kappa and with highest honors from Bates where he studied with Frank Glazer, with whom he now collaborates frequently.

In 1994, Cumming spent a term in Prague playing chamber music on a scholarship from the European Mozart Foundation. Upon returning, he joined the teaching and performing faculty at Phillips Academy in Andover, Mass. Cumming completed the master’s program at New England Conservatory, where he earned a degree with Patricia Zander. He has played at recitals across New England as well as in Sussex, England, where he will return this year to play works of Schubert in celebration of the 200th anniversary of his birth.

With degrees from Oberlin and Yale, Corrie is a harpsichordist who received a Fulbright Scholarship to study in Vienna. A member of the baroque musical ensemble Lygonia Consort, Corrie has played with the Portland Symphony and is on the music faculty of Bates College where he conducts the Bates College Choir. He is also organist and choir director at St. Mary’s in Falmouth.

Walther is a member of the faculty at Phillips Academy, where she teaches music and performs regularly in the Essex Ensemble. After receiving her master of arts degree in violin performance from the University of Indiana, where she studied with Franco Gulli and Stanley Ritchie, she was awarded a Fulbright grant. She spent 1993-94 in Copenhagen studying violin at the Royal Academy of Music with Peder Elbaek and Marta Libalova, traveling monthly to Paris for lessons with Sylvie Gazeau.

Currently a member of the Abbott Trio, Walter is a winner of the Concord Orchestra’s Concerto and the Boston Symphony Orchestra’s Youth Concerto competitions. Recently, she has been appointed to the faculty at the New England Conservatory Extension Division.

Cavalear is a graduate of the New England Conservatory of Music and a member of the music departments at Phillips Academy and Wheaton College. A performer with the Rhode Island Philharmonic, Springfield Symphony and Nashua Symphony, she is also a member of the Hartford Symphony.

The program is made possible by the Florence Pennell Gremley Endowment Fund, given by Florence Pennell Gremley ’25, in memory of her parents, Walter J. Pennell, M.D. and Lelia Goff Pennell, members of the Bates classes of 1890 and 1893 respectively.

For additional information, call the Olin Arts Center at 786-6135.