Trio FABEL is a team of three young Latvian musicians – Anna Gāgane (clarinet); Kristaps Bergs (cello), and concert pianist Linda Leine. Their goal is to present audiences with chamber music programmes of different eras. In addition to their musical relationship, the three have been friends since school, and their dream of performing together finally came true in 2019. Although each of them has their own musical vision, their contrasting temperaments find a common understanding on stage. An important aspect of their work is collaborating with composers and commissioning new works.
In their first joint concert programme in November 2019, the trio performed music by Ludwig van Beethoven, Johannes Brahms, and a piece written specifically for Trio FABEL by Latvian composer Evija Skuķe. For their second concert programme, inspired by film music, the trio contacted Latvian composer Andris Vecumnieks, whose composition Fabel Cinema Fantasy will appear along with works by Gabriel Fauré, Ēriks Ešenvalds, and Nino Rota.
Pianist Linda Leine was born in Riga. She started her studies in Latvia and pursued further education in Hamburg, Lübeck, and Rostock. Since 2010, she has been living and performing in Germany. Linda enjoys performing with vocalists – in 2015, she won the 3 rd place and jury recognition in the international competition Franz Schubert und die Musik der Moderne in Graz (Austria) with singer Pia Davila in the category Duo for Voice and Piano. She also won the first place in the competition Ostracized Music in Schwerin (Germany) in 2016. Additionally, Linda has been playing in a piano duo with Daria Marshinina since 2011. The duo has performed in Germany, Italy, Czechia, and the USA. They were also invited to participate in the Schubertiade masterclasses in Austria with Sir András Schiff. In 2019, the duo received two nominations for Germany’s prestigious Opus Klassik Awards for their debut album Schubert-Stravinsky-Vasks.
Clarinetist Anna Gāgane began her musical education with Gunārs Kļaviņš at Emīls Dārziņš Music School and later studied with Guntis Kuzma at the Jāzeps Vītols Latvian Academy of Music (JVLMA). Additionally, she studied at Lübeck Academy of Music with Sabine Meyer and Reiner Wehle and earned two master’s degrees from the Basel Academy of Music, class of François Benda. Anna is the winner of numerous international competitions; she has received Latvia’s Grand Music Award and the Swiss Government Excellence Scholarship.
Since 2019, Anna has been the assistant principal clarinet at the Latvian National Symphony Orchestra and a lecturer at the JVLMA. In addition to her work at the Orchestra and the Academy, she regularly takes part in chamber music projects, collaborates with young composers and frequently performs as a soloist in Switzerland and Latvia.
Kristaps Bergs is a cellist and chamber musician from Riga, Latvia.
Kristaps attended Emīls Dārziņš Music School in Riga, and in 2006, he enrolled in the prestigious University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna, where he studied with professor Heinrich Schiff and Reinhard Latzko.
Stemming from a family of musicians, Kristaps has performed the cello in the world’s most prestigious concert halls: Carnegie Hall (New York), Walt Disney Concert Hall (Los Angeles), Musikverein and Konzerthaus (Vienna), the Royal Concertgebouw (Amsterdam), Royal Albert Hall (London), and Suntory Hall (Tokyo). He has performed with numerous top-class artists, including Andris Nelsons, Heinrich Schiff, Ida Haendel, Reinhard Latzko, Natalia Prishepenko, Pēteris Vasks, Giovanni Sollima, and Helmut Lachenmann, among others.
Kristaps has been the Principal Cellist of the Brussels Philharmonic since September 2016.