The Poulenc Trio, joined by soprano Shawnette Sulker, closed out the 2024-25 season with a broad selection of pieces suited to their unusual oboe-bassoon-piano configuration. The program began with Handel’s Trio Sonata in F Major, an agreeable opening to warm the audience to this unlikely grouping of instruments. They followed up with a work by their namesake, Francis Poulenc (1899-1963), whose Trio for Oboe, Bassoon and Piano played like a spirited conversation among the three. Before the intermission, the trio performed “Explain Yourself!” an original work they had commissioned from composer Viet Cuong. This piece envisioned an amusing conflict, as oboist Aleh Remezau performed alarm-like “monophonics,” to the bemusement of Bryan Young’s bassoon lines, while Irina Kaplan Lande’s piano tried to bring things back to order. It resulted in some of the night’s loudest applause.
After returning from the intermission, the audience was welcomed back with a series of songs by Poulenc, sung by Shawnette Sulker, who beautifully and skillfully emulated the spirit of the popular culture in post-WWII France, particularly in “Cocardes,” a series of songs adapted from poems by Jean Cocteau, in which lyrics were strung together using similar-sounding syllables. The trio later shook up the proceedings with wonderfully adapted selections by Duke Ellington, “In a Sentimental Mood” and a medley of “The Mooche” and “Black and Tan Fantasy.”