Since the 1980s, Christa Bützberger has given many concerts as a solo pianist, with an orchestra, in various chamber music formations, and as a guest in important seasons and festivals, such as the Musikkollegium Winterthur, Junifestwochen Zürich, Kammermusik Bern, Settembre Musica in Turin, Asolo Musica, the Keszthely Festival, and the Gödöllő Festival.

Her encounter with Sergiu Celibidache – who was her teacher from 1987 to 1996 – was fundamental for her career. Born in Zürich, she graduated at a very young age at the Conservatory of Winterthur and she won the prestigious Pembaur Prize in Bern.
In the 1980 she moved to Italy, which has become her adopted country. She has contributed to the education of many musicians through the ARS ET LABOR Corsi superiori di pianoforte e musica da camera (Advanced Courses on Piano and Chamber Music), and she is regularly invited to teach masterclasses at international academies and various Italian conservatories.

Trio ARS ET LABOR, established in 2011, brings together three instrumentalists that, as the renowned critic and musicologist Christoph Schlüren wrote, have “internationally revivified the great Italian tradition of the piano trio. The name itself is programmatic: ARS ET LABOR stands for the most refined interpretative culture, entirely at the service of music.” Since the first concerts, the Trio has stood out for its solid background and the exquisite performance of masterpieces for this formation.

Their research – carried out following strict phenomenological criteria – is aimed at revealing the intersubjective truth of the pieces performed. Transparency, structural clarity of rhythm, melody and harmony, accuracy and timbric balance, adherence to the text (through direct consultation of the manuscripts, when possible), as well as the spontaneity of the technical skills and the expressive truth are among the core values of Trio ARS ET LABOR.

To this day, the Trio has performed many concerts in Italy and abroad, with a wide repertoire that not only includes the complete works for this formation of great classics such as Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, Schumann, and Brahms, but also stands out for the exquisite performance of pieces from the French repertoire, the 20th century, and contemporary authors.

The critics wrote: “At the piano, Christa Bützberger keeps the Trio on track leading with great flexibility, and pulling out of the instrument a wide variety of timbres and countless gradations in the dynamic and the articulation, with a lightness that is completely free of any constraint and a musicality that takes the breath away, perceivable in every single note. At the violin, Sara Gianfriddo has a soft and tender tone, as she playfully reaches up to the high notes and captivates us with a tone that is sublime and yet so close to us, so intimate and straightforward. Héloïse Piolat is a stirring cellist: you can rarely hear this instrument played with such a lack of pretentiousness. Piolat doesn’t show off with an exaggerated vibrato or over-the-top dynamics, as it is so often the case, but plays with great confidence in the minute articulation of the music and her concentration, resulting convincing every single time.”

[Oliver Fraenzke, Munich “The New Listener”]