By the time The Gryphon Trio steps onto the Tillett Gardens stage on Wednesday evening, the musicians will have been in the territory for nine days.
Nice work if you can get it, you might be thinking. Indeed, pianist Jamie Parker's comment their first night in the islands was "It's a nice break." Well, maybe. . .
The Toronto-based trio members arrived on St. Thomas April 3. The next morning they flew to St. Croix, and that afternoon and evening they spent four hours judging the preliminaries of the Arts Alive/Vitelco Classical Music Competition.
The next day, last Wednesday, they flew back to St. Thomas, and that afternoon and evening they spent another five hours judging the St. Thomas preliminaries.
The next day, Thursday, they ferried to St. John, where they appeared in concert that night.
They were to have returned to St. Thomas afterward but stayed over on St. John instead — and gave an unsheduled performance on Friday for guests at Caneel Bay.
Saturday they ferried back to St. Thomas then flew back to St. Croix, where they performed that night at Island Center.
Sunday they flew back to St. Thomas, where at 1 p.m. they began judging the competition finals — announcing their decisions around 7 p.m.
After seven days of non-stop commitments, they appeared to have Monday and Tuesday to themselves.
So what does all of this have to do with the final performance on their Virgin Islands tour — Wednesday's season finale for the 13th Classics in the Garden concert series? In all probability, nothing at all.
Those who attended the Gryphon Trio performances two years ago on St. Thomas, St. John and St. Croix were impressed with the mature musicianship and confident camaraderie of Parker, violinist Annalee Patipatanakoon and cellist Roman Borys. The three have been playing together for seven years — Patipatanakoon and Borys for 10.
That they chose to name themselves collectively for the mythical "griffin," as Americans know the creature — the British spelling is gryphon — is telling. The half-eagle, half-lion is said to symbolize the convergence of cosmic energy and psychic force.
The musicians felt this would be fitting for an ensemble that from its inception intended to make its mark performing both traditional European works and modern classical compositions. The trio has commissioned and premiered a number of new works, and its next CD, due out this spring, consists entirely of such pieces.
As soon as they return to Canada from this tour, Patipatanakoon says, the three will be "workshopping" portions of a new commissioned work called "Constantinople," presenting it for select audiences to hear and critique. The work-in-progress combines music and multimedia effects, she says, and will incorporate a mezzo soprano and an Eastern-trained Arabic female singer, as well as computer-generated sounds. "The piece will happen in two stages, music and images," the violinist says, with the music portion to premier in October.
The program for the trio's Virgin Island performances is a couple of generations away from such avant-garde ideas. It consists of the Haydn Trio in A Major, Hob XV:18; the Schumann Trio in D Minor, Op. 63; and the Mendelssohn Trio in D Minor. The Gryphon Trio's CD recordings of the Haydn Piano Trios and Mendelsshon/Dvorak Trios won critical acclaim and were both nominated for Juno Awards.
Among them, the three musicians have studied at the Banff Centre, the Curtis Institute, Indiana University, the Juilliard School, the University of British Columbia and Yale University. The Gryphon Trio is the ensemble-in-residence for the Music Toronto series in Toronto. Borys and Patipatanakoon are on the string faculty of the Royal Conservatory of Music in Toronto and Parker teaches piano at Wilfrid Laurier University in Waterloo, Ontario.
Wednesday's concert in Tillett Gardens begins at 8 p.m. Tickets are $25. Pre-performance dinner with concert seating at tables is an addition $30 plus bar service and gratuity. Reservations are required for dinner and recommended for the concert. Call 775-1929, fax to 775-9482 or e- mail to tillett@islands.vi.
