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Puget Sound School of Music student and pianist Jinshil Yi was left "absolutely speechless" the first time she sat down and played with freshmen Faithlina Chan (cello) and Jonathan Mei (violin).

"We sight-read through an entire 30-page Mendelssohn movement without stopping once,"
Jinshil, 14, said. "Of course it wasn't perfect, refined, or flawless -- but the flow, the magic, the consonance was there. I knew, in those 11 minutes, that I had met the perfect piano trio."

Trio Consonare was formed, and within a few short months the three students got big news. They had been chosen to perform in the prestigious Yehudi Menuhin Chamber Music Festival in San Francisco, which runs Jan. 29 through Feb. 3 at San Francisco State University. The festival attracts high-caliber performers and faculty members from The Julliard School of Music in New York, as well as from schools in Toronto, Canada, and London, England. An undergraduate student trio is far from the festival's normal stage fare.

"This is an indescribable honor," Jinshil said. "It is an exceedingly rare privilege and opportunity to be able to attend and learn from some of the greatest masters in the world."

Danville resident Faithlina, 16, said she first took up cello when her two older siblings inspired her to join them in their musical practice.

"Now I just love the sound of the cello and enjoy the variety and depth of the instrument," she said.

Former San Ramon Valley High student Faithlina, Jinshil and 16-year-old Jonathan, an Oakland resident, will perform Mendelssohn Piano Trio No. 1 in d minor at the Yehudi Menuhin Chamber Music Festival. The three will perform a second work as well, possibly from Beethoven, Shubert or Haydn.

The teens first formed Trio Consonare at the behest of Puget Sound artist-in-residence and coach David Requiro, a Naumburg prize- and Irving M. Klein International String Competition-winning cellist. Requiro will also play and teach at the festival. The Yehudi Menuhin Chamber Music Festival was launched in 2003 to honor the late American violinist's association with San Francisco, the city where he first performed solo violin at age 7, and with San Francisco State University.

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