“This is a piano trio that pays with strength and unanimity...big, bold, almost orchestral performances. The Gryphon brings bravura spirit to the piano trio.” –The Los Angeles Times
The endlessly inventive Gryphon Trio has impressed international audiences and the press for the past twenty-five years with its highly refined, dynamic performances, and has firmly established itself as one of the world’s preeminent piano trios. With a repertoire that ranges from the traditional to the contemporary and from European classicism to modern-day multimedia, the Gryphons are committed to redefining chamber music for the 21st century.
The ensemble-in-residence at Music Toronto for more than a decade, the Gryphon Trio tours each season extensively throughout North America and Europe. Recent performances include those for the Chamber Music Society of Detroit, Northwestern University, the Eastman School of Music, Tippet Rise, and Williams College.
The Trio is also dedicated to pushing the boundaries of chamber music and has commissioned and premiered over eighty new works from established and emerging composers around the world, and has collaborated on special projects with clarinetist James Campbell, actor Colin Fox, choreographer David Earle, vocal ensemble Nordic Voices, and a host of jazz luminaries at Lula Lounge, Toronto’s leading venue for jazz and world music. Their most ambitious undertaking to date is a groundbreaking multimedia production of composer Christos Hatzis’s epic work Constantinople, scored for mezzo-soprano, Middle Eastern singer, violin, cello, piano, and electronic audiovisual media, which they have brought to audiences across North America and at the Royal Opera House in London.
Deeply committed to the education of the next generations of audiences and performers alike, the Gryphon takes time out of their busy touring schedule to conduct master classes and workshops at universities and conservatories across North America, and are Artists-in-Residence at the University of Toronto’s Faculty of Music. The Trio’s educational initiatives include the Young Composers Program at Toronto’s Claude Watson Arts High School and its flagship educational project Listen Up!, created by the Trioin collaboration with composer Andrew Stanil and and music educator Rob Kapilow from What Makes it Great?. Listen Up! involves entire schools in the creation of a new work for choir and piano trio: students compose poetry and music over the course of a school year, culminating in a joint performance by the Gryphon Trio and the school choir. The much-publicized project began in Ontario and has traveled across Canada.
The Trio’s celebrated recordings on the Analekta label are an encyclopedia of works by Haydn,Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, Mendelssohn, Dvorak, Lalo, Shostakovich, and Piazzolla, and their groundbreaking 2004 release Canadian Premieres, featuring new works by leading Canadian composers, was acknowledged with a coveted Juno Award from the Canadian Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences. Their 2011 Beethoven recording also received a Juno Award and was followed by the release of Broken Hearts and Madmen, a collaboration with the cabaret singer Patricia O’Callaghan featuring songs by Leonard Cohen, Nick Drake, and Laurie Anderson alongside traditional melodies from Mexico, Argentina, and Chile.
