The Gryphon Trio performs contemporary classics in Toronto (04/25/99)

The Gryphon Trio performs contemporary classics in Toronto

by Oksana Zakydalsky

TORONTO - The Gryphon Trio - violinist Annalee Patipatanakoon, cellist Roman Borys and pianist Jamie Parker - performed at the Jane Mallet Theatre on March 23, in a concert presented by Music Toronto, the city's notable chamber music society. Called "one of Canada's premier chamber groups" by The Washington Post, The Gryphon Trio was formed in 1993, although Ms. Patipatanakoon and Mr. Borys have worked together since 1985, formerly as part of Trio Lyrika.

Ms. Patipatanakoon, who is on the string faculty of the Royal Conservatory of Music, is a native of Calgary, where she began her music studies. She later studied at the Curtis Institute and Indiana University. Mr. Borys - a member of the Canadian Opera Company Orchestra and a graduate of Toronto's Royal Conservatory of Music - completed his music studies at Indiana and Yale universities. Mr. Parker, an assistant professor of piano at the University of Waterloo, studied at the University of British Columbia and the Juilliard School, where he received a master of music degree in 1987 and a doctorate in 1992.

The "Contemporary Classics" program included compositions by Charles Ives and Dmitri Shostakovich. In addition, the ensemble played two pieces by contemporary Canadian composers Gary Kulesha and Marc Sabat. Both composers were present at the concert, and each briefly discussed his work before its performance.

Mr. Kulesha is a native Torontonian whose compositions have been commissioned and performed by noted Canadian and international orchestras. He is the composer of the opera "Red Emma" (which premiered in 1995), and teaches composition and theory at the University of Toronto, where he also directs the Contemporary Music Ensemble.

As composer-advisor to the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, in January of this year he toured Florida with the orchestra, which performed his work "The Gates of Time." In October 2000 Mr. Kulesha is scheduled to conduct a concert of Canadian music in Lviv.

Mr. Sabat, a composer (and violinist) received his master's degree from the Juilliard School. Currently based in Toronto, he is active as a performer and composer, and is also involved in experimental work in performance and electronic media. He explained that the inspiration for his composition came from a collection of toy violins that he found in a store when he was living in Stuttgart. Mr. Sabat dedicted his composition to his mother, Christine Solonynka-Sabat, the anniversary of whose tragic death last year in Fredericton, New Brunswick, fell on the evening of the concert.

In his review of the concert, Toronto Star music critic John Lehr pointed out that the trio had chosen for its name the gryphon - half lion and half eagle, a symbol of the connection between psychic energy and cosmic force. In summing up the evening's performance, he wrote:

"Charles Ives' Trio for Violin, Cello and Piano launched The Gryphon on a taxing musical adventure of extraordinary mental and emotional range. Canadian Gary Kulesha's Trio for Violin, Cello and Piano countered the American's chaotic exuberance with intensely self-reflective, relentlessly integrating music: three movements based on three closely related themes in continual development. The Gryphon gave it the unremitting mental focus it required."

"Though Canadian Marc Sabat's quiet Trio for Piano, Violin and Cello had none of the manic moments that erupted in the previous works, it required the same sustaining energy. The Gryphon moved through its slowly chiming increments of harmonic change with continous care and vigilance. The program concluded with Dmitri Shostakovich's Piano Trio No. 2, Op. 67, a piece filled with strangeness, roughness and searing soulfulness characteristic of the Russian composer. The Gryphon's energy did not flag. Roman Borys's eerie, high harmonics at the beginning of the work, in fact, surpassed the quiet intensity of Sabat's piece. The Gryphon, however, also has a big sound that roared forth in the final movement before it, too, whispered to an end. This talented trio, indeed, makes music worthy of its name."

The Gryphon Trio has toured extensively in Canada and the United States and has performed in Belgium, France, Poland, Germany and Australia. In 1996 Analekta Records released The Gryphon's recording of Haydn Piano Trios, which received critical acclaim and a Juno Award nomination. Analekta recently released the ensemble's second commercial CD, which includes Dvorak's "Dumky," Op. 90, and the Mendelssohn Trio in D minor, Op. 49.

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