Webster Trio
The Webster Trio was founded in 1988 by Michael Webster and Leone Buyse in order to expand and promote the repertoire for flute, clarinet, and piano through commissions, transcriptions, and research. The trio’s from pianist from 2000-2018 was the late Dutch pianist Robert Moeling; previous collaborative pianists were the legendary Beveridge Webster, Michael’s late father and a long-time member of the Juilliard School faculty, pianist-composer Martin Amlin of Boston University, and University of Michigan faculty member Katherine Collier. Webster Trio recordings are available on the Crystal label (Tour de France, World Wide Webster, American Webster).
In Japan Buyse and Webster performed for 20 years with pianist Chizuko Sawa as the Webster Trio Japan, touring throughout Japan and giving recitals at Tokyo’s Suntory Hall and Bunka Kaikan. Their CDs include Sonata Cho-Cho San (Nami) and From Vienna to Budapest (Camerata Tokyo). Wishing to connect on a personal level with their audiences, Buyse and Webster studied Japanese and were able to introduce works on their programs, afterward signing CDs in katakana for audience members. Following an educational concert at a small mountain school near Hitoyoshi (Kumamoto Prefecture, Kyushu) they received letters of appreciation from their audience. One young student wrote:
When you played, I felt a fountain in my heart.
Buyse/Webster Duo
Married in 1987, flutist Leone Buyse (rhymes with “spicy”) and clarinetist Michael Webster bring a special warmth and intimate understanding to their performances in solo recital, chamber music, and concerto settings. Professional colleagues for seven years in the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra, they first began performing as a duo in 1980 while members of the San Francisco Symphony. Following a decade of contributions to Boston’s musical life, the peripatetic pair relocated to Ann Arbor, Michigan but were soon lured from the University of Michigan by Rice University to Houston, Texas, where they work together training future orchestral players, chamber musicians, soloists, and teachers at the world-renowned Shepherd School of Music.
Committed to promoting and expanding the repertoire for flute and clarinet through research, commissions, and transcriptions, the Duo offers a refreshing array of solos, duets, and trios with a collaborative pianist and concertos with orchestra. Buyse and Webster share a love of education, travel, and language. Wherever they perform, they seek interaction with their youngest listeners… the audiences of tomorrow. During the past three decades they have appeared together in locales as diverse as a remote northern California reservation, downtown New York, Chicago, and Tokyo, rural Quebec, Symphony Hall with the Boston Pops, Alaska, New Zealand, the mountains of Colorado and Utah, and a Caribbean island. In addition to being internationally known performing artists, both have gained recognition as writers and speakers in the music field, and are in demand for clinics, workshops, and master classes. Their concerts invariably include commentary designed to enlighten and entertain. While on tour in Japan, they astonished their listeners by explaining repertoire and signing post-concert autographs in Japanese.
Below is their live performance of Muczynski’s Duos for Flute and Clarinet (the composer’s own adaptation of his Duos for Two Flutes), recorded during the Webster Trio’s annual faculty recital at Rice University on September 5, 2013.
