YOUNG MUSICAL TALENT IN SPOTLIGHT

A triumvirate of Cape Girardeau's finest youthful musical talent will be on display Sunday.

Each has won competitions in the past as a soloist, but on Sunday cellist Kirk Miller, violinist Liesl Schoenberger and pianist Patches King will combine to perform Mendelssohn's Piano Trio No. 1.

The free 7 p.m. concert at Centenary United Methodist Church is a solo recital for cellist Miller, who will perform Bach's Sonata No. 2 accompanied by harpsichordist Mary Van Hoet-Miller. Miller also will play Saint-Saens' Cello Concerto No. 1.

It was Dr. Sara Edgerton, director of the University Symphony Orchestra and Miller's teacher, who put him together with Schoenberger and King for the piano trio. "I heard the last recital Liesl did and I was so inspired by her playing that I thought it would be nice to get them together for some chamber music," Edgerton said.

Edgerton, Schoenberger and Miller also have a history. Edgerton started a youth orchestra when she first arrived at the university. Schoenberger was the concert mistress and Miller was the principal cellist.

The concert offers even more history in the mother-son relationship between Van Hoet-Miller and Kirk Miller.

Schoenberger is an eighth-grader at St. Mary's Cathedral School who has recorded a fiddle CD in Nashville and has played at the Ryman Auditorium. At age 12, she won the state junior fiddling championship at Missouri State Fair in Sedalia.

In her first classical violin competition last fall, she was a semifinalist in the National American String Teachers Association Solo Competition.

She studies with Mimi Zweig, a professor of music at Indiana University.

Earlier in the year, Miller won the Paducah Symphony Young Artist's Competition, entitling him to solo with the orchestra. He is a multi-instrumentalist -- oboe and English horn -- who also plays electric bass in Cape Central High School jazz and salsa bands.

A junior at the high school, this summer he will be a member of the master class of Janos Starker, a professor of cello at Indiana University.

King is the eldest of the group, a senior piano performance major at Southeast from Marcelline. She has won the university's Concerto and Aria Competition and last fall won the collegiate upper division contest held annually by the Missouri Music Teachers Association.

She studied and performed in Italy with Operafestival di Roma in 1995. Her teacher at the university is Dr. James Sifferman.

Playing with a trio is an opportunity to improve your musicianship, King says.

"I play all the time by myself... They have pushed me musically, and this is challenging music."

The Mendelssohn piano trio strikes a balance between the instruments and has an enjoyable familiarity, says Edgerton, who has been rehearsing the trio.

Coming off his solo with the Paducah Symphony, Miller is enjoying the interplay. "This is different from anything I've ever done," he says.

Musicians can lose their identity in an orchestra, Edgerton says. "Here you have a real conversation."

"It's like talking to each other," King says.

"... If you don't communicate it's not going to work."