Pianist Kathryn Selby’s guests for the first Selby & Friends tour of 2020 are violinist Emily Sun, who among her many honours took out the grand prize at the ABC Young Performers Awards in 2018, clarinettist Benjamin Mellefont, who took the top clarinet job at the London Philharmonic Orchestra in 2019, and cellist Clancy Newman, whose gongs include a gold medal at the Dandenong Festival in Australia at age 12 and first prize – shared with none other than Chinese virtuoso Li-Wei Qin – at the prestigious International Naumburg Competition in 2001. An impressive line-up, therefore, and no surprise that the musicians should deliver refined performances in this program of Mozart, Brahms, Stravinsky and Arensky.

Emily Sun, Kathryn Selby and Clancy Newman in rehearsal. Photo supplied

The concert opened with Mozart’s Piano Trio No 5, K.548, completed towards the end of the composer’s life, in the summer of 1788. The optimistic ascending figure which opens the first movement – and returns dramatically in the minor during the development – got the performance off to a bright start, Selby’s piano glimmering against the rich timbres of Sun’s violin and Newman’s cello. Sun gave her running passages...