Trio Phōs

Our residency at School of Music at The Ohio State University starts tomorrow, and we’re SO excited! We’d like to introduce you all to one of our wonderful choreographers for this residency, Zoey November! When we first reached out to Zoey to collaborate with us, she mentioned a wonderful organization called the Perennial Movement Group, which creates opportunities for retired dancers and older adults to experience dance in Columbus, OH. Zoey brought on board 6 dancers from this group, and we can’t wait to start rehearsing with them on Tuesday! We also sent her excerpts of Concert Conversations we’ve had with older adults in NYC and beyond (with the participants’ consent). A Concert Conversation is an intimate session where a member of Trio Phōs interweaves music and conversation with 1-2 participants. Through this medium, we created a space where the participants engage with a solo performer on topics such as aging, memories, and personal reflections.

Here’s what Zoey says about this project and collaborating with Trio Phōs: “I am so excited and honored to be a part of this project. Working with Trio Phōs and dancers from Perennial Movement Group to bring folks' personal stories to the stage has been a dream! We can’t wait to share it with you! The stories people share during the Concert Conversations are both deeply personal, yet somehow universal. These intimate moments, whether mundane or life-changing, speak to the complexity of human experiences in such a relatable way. I hope this concert will inspire you to move through life with compassion."

Zoey November (she/her) is a dance artist, educator, and choreographer with a focus on access in the arts. Coming from the wooded mountains of rural Vermont, she is currently based in Columbus, Ohio, pursuing an MFA in Inclusive Dance Pedagogy and Disability in the Performing Arts while teaching at the Ohio State University. Her choreographic work has been presented at regional festivals across Ohio and Vermont, recognized for a unique approach to sculptural costuming and an emphasis on community building. Her formal education includes a B.S. in Natural Resources and a B.A. in Dance from the University of Vermont (magna cm laude). A lifelong practice in understanding multiple perspectives, experiences, and ecological relationships drives her academic and artistic inquiry, noticeably present across her varied works.

We had the most wonderful time performing at Edie Windsor SAGE Center, an LGBTQ+ center for older adults, this past Tuesday!
Huge thanks to everyone who came out! It was a privilege to hear your stories and your “sage” advice and to feel your vibrant energy. Sharing music and personal stories in this way felt like a beautiful embodiment of all the values of our project, The Sound of Connection.
Special thanks to Fred and Michael, who not only attended the performance but are also featured in the clips that inspired our commission by Shih-Hui Chen - “Our Stories, Our Songs.” Your voices made ’s piece come alive!

The performance was filmed by John Ciampa, and we will be sharing snippets from it soon.

1: Happy Pride Month everyone!
2: Trio Phōs in action
3 & 4: Our lovely audience members, who so generously shared their personal stories with us
5 & 6: Respectively Michael and Fred who were a source of inspiration for Shih-Hui’s piece
7: With our wonderful videographer-John Ciampa
8: Practicing our speech
9: Happy faces after the concert

SAGE Trio Phōs Yasmina Spiegelberg Sophiko Simsive Julia Yang

🥳 We are thrilled to be able to share our very first commission for Trio Phōs!
Thanks to the brilliant Taiwanese-American composer, Shih-Hui Chen, who will write a work for clarinet trio for our project, The Sound of Connection.

Our thanks to the New World Symphony for funding this commission as a part of their BLUE Grant.

We look forward to seeing how this commission unfolds as it takes inspiration from the mission of our project: a celebration of community, empathy and intergenerational understanding through music, building relationships with and listening to the stories of elders across NYC!

Learn more about Shih-Hui Chen:

Recipient of the 2023 Walter Hinrichsen Prize from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, Taiwanese American composer Shih-Hui Chen is fascinated by the narratives at the intersection of identity, culture, and tradition. In her work, she seeks to bridge boundaries between music and society, between the music of different cultures, and between music and other art forms.

Chen studied indigenous and Nanguan music in Taiwan to broaden her understanding of her heritage resulting in pieces like A Plea to Chang’e for Nanuan P**a and Chamber Orchestra and Returning Souls: Four Short Pieces on Three Formosan Amis Legends. Her recent works include Kimchi, Pickles, and Wine, a cross-genre theatrical piece exploring food preservation as a cultural connector; or/and, a chamber opera addressing personal and cultural identity; and sisila ila ila: saying goodbye, a shadow puppet viola concerto focused on cultural and environmental conservation.

Shih-Hui Chen has received recognition from prestigious institutions, including the American Academy in Rome, the Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, the Koussevitzky Foundation, the Barlow Endowment, the Fromm Foundation, and the Fulbright Scholar Program. Shih-Hui Chen serves on the Performing Arts and Culture Committee at the Asia Society Texas Center and teaches at Rice University’s Shepherd School of Music.

Her collaborations include the Philadelphia Orchestra, Cleveland Symphony Orchestra, and National Taiwan Symphony Orchestra.

When not composing, she watches cat videos on TikTok while drinking wine.

📣EXCITING NEWS FOR 2025!!!🥳 Trio Phōs has been awarded $15,000 as a recipient of the 2024 New World Symphony BLUE Grant for our project “The Sound of Connection”!

This project is very dear to our hearts and revolves around intergenerational connection, the intimate sharing of music and conversation, personal stories, new commissions, and community building.

Thanks to the generous funding from New World Symphony, we will be able to offer 50+ free “Concert Conversations” to diverse communities of older adults in NYC. These are small-group sessions where solo musicians interweave music with audience members’ reflections on their lives and experiences. With just two or three participants, we encourage personal storytelling, allowing for deep, spontaneous exchanges between solo performer and audience members.

In addition to these intimate “Concert Conversations”, Trio Phōs will offer four free larger-scale community concerts at older adults centers, which will include a NEW work for clarinet trio commissioned specifically for this project!...so, stay tuned for another exciting announcement very soon regarding this brand-new commission!🤩

Find out much more about the project on our updated website - link in our profile!

We’re so grateful to have been selected by the NWS BLUE Grant to make this dream project come true! We’re also thrilled to say that we’re already planning on taking “The Sound of Connection” to another level next season – more on this later! ♥️🌻

📸: John Ciampa— thank you, John, for the great photoshoot and pictures!🙏

Introducing Sophiko Simsive, the pianist of Trio Phōs!

Hailing from the colorful streets of Tbilisi, Sophiko moved to Amsterdam at the age of 15, mastering Dutch-accented English and biking—an activity she still very much enjoys in New York, thanks to the CitiBike subscription. Her studies brought her to Universität der Künste Berlin and later to Yale School of Music, where she was often scolded by her teachers for playing too much chamber music instead of practicing solo repertoire. Now, as a member of the Claremont Trio and a Coach at Yale, she nurtures her deep love for chamber music. As an only child, she quickly found that making music with others brought her endless joy and meaningful friendships.

Her connection with Yasmina and Julia goes beyond their shared love for salsa, cheese and cocktails. In fact, Sophiko first met Yasmina in 2008 at a history class in Amsterdam, where she was inspired by Yasmina’s fearless questions. They reconnected at , where she first met Julia. Among Julia’s many talents, Sophiko finds her thoughtfulness and Google Doc skills the most impressive. Cello and Clarinet repertoires are some of Sophiko’s absolute favorites to perform, and the trifecta adds to the thrill of joining Yasmina and Julia on this next adventure.

Next up: Phōs Cellist, Julia Yang!

Julia grew up with her Korean and Taiwanese first gen parents in, of all places, warm and sunny Tallahassee, FL, her home of 18 years. Zigzagging northward to Chicago, Boston, NYC, and Miami Beach, she now calls Columbus, OH home, where she’s settled as a Visiting Assistant Professor at The Ohio State University.

Her first musical love is chamber music, where festivals and organizations like Yellow Barn, New England Conservatory, New World Symphony, and Ensemble Connect brought not only inspiring music making, but friendships, relationships (including her spouse, thank you Marlboro!), and professional ensembles ( and ) that have enriched her life in every measure.

Julia’s affinity for the piano and clarinet goes back to early family ties, in a home where two pianos took up the living room, and clarinet was the only wind instrument allowed in the house (even drums made the cut!). Outside of music making, you can find Julia enjoying amari and crafting cocktails, keeping active, and checking out the local arts scene.

Introducing you all to Yasmina Spiegelberg, the clarinetist of Trio Phōs!✨
Yasmina grew up in a very small and peaceful village in Switzerland and left her country about 15 years ago to pursue her studies in rainy Amsterdam, freezing Oslo, and amazingly hot Los Angeles, where she also dived (slightly too much?) into salsa💃. In 2020, she moved to the Big Apple to join Carnegie Hall’s Ensemble Connect and fell into the common love/hate relationship with this chaotic yet vibrant city. She now enjoys playing lots of chamber music as well as orchestra with gorgeous musicians in the city and over the US.

Her parents are both pianists, and hadn’t she picked the clarinet, she would have chosen the cello, so it makes sense that her favorite chamber music combination is one that combines all three instruments. And she truly cherishes the intimacy created with such a small group.
When not playing the clarinet, Yasmina is biking all over NYC, reading, or eating indecent amounts of gruyère cheese.

Hi everyone! Trio Phōs is launching! We are Yasmina Spiegelberg (Clarinet), Sophiko Simsive (Piano) and Julia Yang (Cello). We have exciting plans in the works, and, as our name “Phōs” implies, our aim is to light up (and warm up!) our own corner of the chamber music world with new and old music, new collabs, and much more. Follow to join our corner!