Walter Verdehr is a violinist, Elsa plays clarinet, and after 3 years of dating, they tied the knot in 1971.

Eventually, the couple decided to form a music group of their own — the Verdehr Trio. However, there weren’t many ensemble pieces for the violin-clarinet-piano combination. Thus, many of the pieces they perform have been created specifically for them, and a number were written by world-renowned composers.

“By now, we have over 200 pieces written for us,” Walter Verdehr said. “MSU has been very helpful for us. They’ve encouraged us to do this and do concerts around the world — which we’ve done.”

The Verdehr Trio will celebrate their legacy and accomplishments by presenting a 40th Anniversary Concert on Sunday at 3 p.m. in the Cook Recital Hall.

A few of the composers who have written for them, and who will be featured during the concert, including 2012 Pulitzer Prize-winner Kevin Puts, Bright Sheng, Alexander Arutiunian, and MSU’s own professor of composition Jere Hutcheson and professor of composition and music theory Charles Ruggiero.

“When we learn a new piece for the first time, nobody else has ever done it before,” said Elsa Ludewig-Verdehr. “So that’s really interesting, first, just trying to learn the notes, then put it together, and then figure out exactly what atmosphere, what character, what mood.”

Pianist Silvia Roederer, who joined the group in 1997, said it’s interesting to be able to work with new pieces of work so often.

“We love working with the composers, that’s a privilege when you’re a musician and you’re playing old, dead people’s things all the time,” she said. “You don’t get to ask the person ‘What did you really mean here?’ And that’s been really exciting, to work with composers directly and get their feedback on our playing and having conversation about the piece.”

The trio has performed in over 40 countries and in all 50 states. Though she acknowledged making music should stand out most, Elsa Ludewig-Verdehr said seeing all of the interesting places in the world has been the highlight of her career thus far.

“You can imagine all the interesting places we’ve been and all of the interesting things we’ve seen,” she said. “We went to Indonesia, and we went to this huge temple Borobudur and we’ve been to the pyramids. You name it, we’ve seen it.”

Walter and Elsa Ludewig-Verdehr also privately teach graduate students. Graduate student Svetlana Mondrusov, who studies under Walter Verdehr, spoke glowingly of his teaching style.

“He’s an extremely experienced person, very knowledgeable and very open-minded person,” Mondrusov said. “I feel that he just has very unique technical approaches that nobody has.”