Evolution: Classical 2023

Celebrating its 30th season, the Gryphon Trio is one of the world’s preeminent piano trios, garnering acclaim and impressing international audiences with its highly refined, dynamic and memorable performances.

With a repertoire that ranges from traditional to contemporary and from European classicism to modern-day multimedia, the Gryphons are committed to redefining chamber music for the 21st century.

Creative innovators with an appetite for discovery and new directions, the Gryphon Trio has commissioned over 100 new works, and frequently collaborates on projects that push the boundaries of chamber music. The trio tours regularly throughout North America and Europe, and their 22 recordings are an encyclopedia of works for the genre. Honours include three Juno Awards for Classical Album of the Year – most recently, that of 2019 – and the prestigious 2013 Walter Carsen Prize for Excellence in the Performing Arts from the Canada Council.

Deeply committed to music education and audience development, the Gryphons conduct master classes and workshops at universities and conservatories, and are artists-in-residence at the University of Toronto’s Faculty of Music and Trinity College. Dr. Jamie Parker is the Rupert E. Edwards Chair in Piano Performance and Annalee Patipatanakoon is Associate Professor of Violin and Head of Strings at the University of Toronto’s Faculty of Music.

Since 2010, the trio’s multi-faceted arts creation program Listen Up! has engaged elementary school students, teachers and parents in 16 Canadian communities and provided them with the experience and knowledge required to participate actively in the arts.

The Gryphon Trio has had a long association with the Ottawa Chamberfest – Roman Borys served as Artistic Director between 2007-2015, as Artistic and Executive Director between 2015-2021 and Patipatanakoon and Parker served as Artistic Advisors between 2008-2021. The Trio are currently Directors of Classical Music Summer programs at Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity.

Megumi Masaki is a pianist, multimedia performing artist, educator and curator. She is recognized as an innovator that reimagines the piano, pianist and performance space. Her work pushes boundaries of interactivity between sound, image, text and movement in multimedia works through new technologies, including hand-gesture-motion tracking to generate and control live-electronics and live-video, AI, 3D visuals, keyboard-controlled computer game, e-textile sensors and active infra-red tracking. As a Japanese-Canadian artist, her work also explores how human rights and environmental issues can intersect and be communicated through music. Over 70 compositions have been created with/for Megumi and she has premiered 150 works worldwide. Megumi was appointed to the Order of Manitoba and Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada.
www.megumimasaki.com

Åstrand is a renowned Swedish mallet specialist, a unique voice of both the marimba and the vibraphone. He is a sought after soloist, regularly performing and giving master classes internationally. Since 2017, Åstrand heads the contemporary music and improvisation class at Orford Music Summer Academy. Also commissioned as a composer, compositions include works for percussion and chamber ensembles, brass quintets, saxophone quartet, choirs, and big band. A more spectacular side features compositions for ice instruments for percussion ensemble, as well as using fighter aircrafts, snow trucks, and buildings as instruments to be played on. Åstrand’s music can also be found in multimedia performances including dance, video projections, ice instruments, and fire sculptures. Anders Åstrand regularly collaborates with various ensembles and groups. He plays vibraphone in both Soundscape Orchestra and Firm roots. Åstrand also plays the vibes in the big band Ann-Sofie Söderqvist Jazz Orchestra, and can be heard on the albums Move. The duo Vibes and Bass (Mikael Berglund, bass and Anders Åstrand, mallets) has released two albums with original music, Seven Thoughts and Frantelunia. His own groups include WÅG (Mattias Wager, church organ; Anders Åstrand, mallets and percussion, and Gary Graden, vocals), Åstrand-Erlandsson Duo (Robert Erlandsson, double bass and Anders Åstrand mallets), and his percussion ensemble, Global Percussion Network, with which he has toured extensively in Sweden, Europe, the United States, and South Korea. Anders Åstrand regularly performs at Percussive Arts Society International Convention (PASIC). He functions as International Education Orchestral Consultant for Zildjian since 2008. Anders Åstrand plays Yamaha instruments, Zildjian cymbals, Vic Firth mallets, and Evans drumheads.

Image by Anders Astrand

Aiyun Huang enjoys a musical life as soloist, chamber musician, researcher, teacher and producer. Globally recognized since winning the 2002 First Prize and Audience Prize of the Geneva International Music Competition. She is a champion of existing repertoire and a prominent voice in the collaborative creation of new works. Huang has commissioned and premiered over two hundred works in her two decades as a soloist and chamber musician. The Globe and Mail critic Robert Everett-Green describes Huang’s playing as “engrossing to hear and to watch” and her choice of repertoire as capable of “renovating our habits of listening.” Her past highlights include performances at the Victoria Hall in Geneva, Weill Recital Hall in New York, Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra’s Green Umbrella Series, LACMA Concert Series, Holland Festival, Agora Festival in Paris, Banff Arts Festival, 7éme Biennale d’Art Contemporaine de Lyon, Vancouver New Music Festival, CBC Radio, La Jolla Summerfest, Scotia Festival, Cool Drummings, Montreal New Music Festival, Centro Nacional Di Las Artes in Mexico City, Cervantino Festival, and National Concert Hall and Theater in Taipei. Her recent highlights include performances with St. Lawrence String Quartet, L’Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, Taipei Symphony Orchestra and San Diego Symphony Orchestra. Her recent premieres include works by Philippe Leroux, David Bithell, Nicole Lizée, George Lewis, and Eliot Britton.

Patricia O’Callaghan’s recording career spans six solo CDs and many interesting guest collaborations.  Her early recordings focused on European cabaret and she is considered a specialist in the music of Kurt Weill performing his Threepenny Opera, Seven Deadly Sins, and Kleine Mahagonny with Soulpepper Theatre Company, Edmonton Opera, and Vancouver Opera and others.

She has sung with some of the world's great ensembles and artists (Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, Don Byron Quartet, Bryn Terfel), and has performed in venues that range from London's Royal Opera House to New York's Noho cabaret Le Poisson Rouge.

Patricia also writes and co-writes songs and has had the honor of premiering many new compositions, from both the classical and pop worlds working with many creators including R. Murray Schafer, Dennis Lee, Christos Hatzis, George Aperghis, Steve Reich, and Steven Page.

Patricia's film, theatre and television credits include her own Bravo! special, CBC produced Ken Finkleman series Foolish Heart, and the semi-autobiographical Rhombus / Westwind film Youkali Hotel, which has won several prizes, including a Golden Sheaf Award to Patricia for best female performance. 

Recent projects include a collaboration with The Gryphon Trio called Broken Hearts and Madmen and a new project Deepest December which will be her first Christmas CD featuring beautiful carols, haunting arrangements and unusual juxtapositions not found on typical recordings.

Allen is a passionate music lover, storyteller, accomplished trombonist, writer, and broadcaster. He brings a wealth of knowledge to CBC Music. Tom hosted Music and Company on CBC Music for ten years and then went on to host CBC Music Mornings. Prior to this, his weekly stories aired to a keen Ontario audience on CBC Radio One's Fresh Air and nationally on This Morning. He is the creator, along with the harpist Lori Gemmell, of a series of stage shows mixing storytelling, history, classical music, and original popular song. These shows include Bohemians in Brooklyn ("slickly written" and "beautifully punctuated," Now Magazine), The Judgment of Paris, From Weimar to Vaudeville, and The Missing Pages, all of which have received dozens of performances and tour the country on an ongoing basis. Tom has also authored three books, most recently The Gift of the Game, a reflection on hockey and the role the game plays in the life of a divorced parent. Allen studied at McGill University, graduated from Boston University and received his M.A. at Yale University. While looking for full-time work as a trombonist, he temped on Wall Street and cooked in a Mexican restaurant. In 1987, he began touring with the Great Lakes Brass until he joined CBC Radio in Halifax. Tom lives with his wife in Toronto with their son, hoping for visits from the other kids who aren't kids anymore. He is an avid cyclist and plays recreational hockey and basketball.

A versatile artist, whose talents transcend the boundaries of dance, music, opera and multi-media, Marie-Josée Chartier moves easily between her many roles as choreographer, performer, director, vocalist and teacher. Her dynamic choreography is influenced by contemporary music, literature and the visual arts as she explores and deconstructs the vulnerabilities of human beings.

Her acclaimed pieces have been presented at major festivals and by dance companies across Canada, Europe and Latin America. Her work was the subject of several documentary films. Since 2003, in addition to her activities as a performer and choreographer, Marie-Josée directs/stages contemporary opera and multi-media productions for: Gryphon Trio, Toca Loca, Queen of Puddings Music Theatre, Tapestry Opera, Theaturtle and l’Ensemble Contemporain de Montréal (ECM+).

Chartier receives the following awards: Jacqueline Lemieux Prize (2015); K.M. Hunter Artist Award (2001), 9 Dora Mavor Moore Award nominations; recipient of a Dora for fifty- one pieces of silver (2002) and shared two Doras with the collective URGE for And by the way Miss (2005).  Marie-Josée formed Chartier Danse in 2003 to support her projects and create a cornerstone for large scale productions and partnerships in Canada and abroad.

Violinist Parmela Attariwala interweaves life as a performer-creator, researcher, equity advocate and educator. Parmela pursued her fascination with sound and unworded music through studies in performance (Indiana University and Bern Conservatory), electroacoustic and jazz composition, and ethnomusicology (School of Oriental and African Studies, and the University of Toronto). Her creative work explores the liminal space between musical genres, artistic disciplines, and identities, often using improvisation as a point of departure. Parmela has recorded three critically acclaimed Attar Project albums featuring works for violin and tabla. She has also collaborated extensively with choreographers (bharata-natyam, butoh and contact) as composer and movement artist.

More recently, Parmela has been working with visual artists, creating musical responses to installations by Jeffrey Gibson, Nep Sidhu, Luciana Santos, Peter Morin and Ayumi Goto. She is currently developing a series of soundscores for bharata-natyam dancer Sujit Vaidya; and is co-creating music for the Indigenous-led opera Namwayut (Calgary Opera) as well as for Re:Naissance Opera’s virtual opera, Live from the Underworld.

Parmela uses her academic chops to advocate for a radical reimagining of the Canadian musical ecosystem centred around equity, access, decolonization and ethical practice. She recently developed an anti-racist, anti-oppressive music curriculum for a Toronto community music school; and in 2021, she co-founded Understory an online multi-disciplinary creation platform for Canadian improvising artists.

Hugh Conacher is a lighting and multi-media designer, and a photographer, whose practice is based in live performance. He has collaborated with musicians, choreographers, directors, visual artists, and dance and theatre companies throughout Canada and around the world, in venues large and small. He approaches each project as an individual work of art. 
Hugh’s multi-disciplinary process straddles the worlds of lighting design, new media technologies, projection and photography, blurring the lines between disciplines, using whichever media form best serves the vision of his current project. 

Hugh serves on the boards of several arts organizations and has been the curator for the High Octane Gallery at the Gas Station Arts Centre in Winnipeg since 2002. His photographic work resides in private collections and has been published worldwide.

Hugh has been a member of the Associated Designers of Canada since 1982 and is a member of l’Association des professionnels des arts de la scène du Québec.

Sigi Torinus creates new media works that include site-specific installation and improvisatory interactive live-video performance. Her work explores our perceptions of the migratory journey, through time and space, in physical, ephemeral and digital worlds. She holds an MFA from the Braunschweig Art Institute, Germany, and San Francisco State University in California. As a professor of Integrated Media at the University of Windsor in Ontario, she co-directs the Noiseborder Multimedia Performance Laboratory with composer and multimedia artist Brent Lee.
As a co-founder of the Noiseborder Ensemble, she has been exploring artistic and technical complexities in multimedia performance, including the integration of acoustic instruments and emerging sound processing technologies, the development of performance practice in real-time audio and video creation, and the potential for new relationships between sound and moving images. The ensemble includes Brent Lee (composer, sound designer, saxophonist, keyboardist, guitarist), Sigi Torinus (video artist, installation artist), Nicholas Papador (percussionist, composer, keyboardist), Chris McNamara (media artist, sound designer, visual artist), Trevor Pittman (clarinetist, composer), and Megumi Masaki (pianist). The ensemble has performed at various festivals and venues, including ClarinetFest Oostende, Belgium (2018); the Festival des Musiques de Création in Jonquière, Quebec (2015); Beyond The Keys, Laban Theatre, London UK (2015); Bangor University, Wales (2015); the Ottawa Chamber Music Festival (2013); the Sonorities Festival in Belfast (2013).
 

Eliot Britton (b.1983) bridges sound worlds.  From the imperceptible rhythms of the natural environment to towering, digitally magnified timbres, his musical language uses the tools and techniques of the 21st century to build and share networks of music and meaning. Britton’s fiercely virtuosic and award-winning aesthetic brings together performers and technology, finding new modes of expression and collaboration. From soloists, drum machines and orchestras to augmented reality and machine learning, Britton seeks innovative ways of connecting and expressing Canada’s contemporary soundscape. As an Anglo-Metis from Manitoba, Britton is passionate about collaborating on narrative expanding indigenous projects. 

A graduate of the University of Manitoba (w. Michael Matthews) and McGill University (w. Sean Ferguson), Britton is now a teacher, researcher, and composer at the University of Toronto. There he is the Director of the newly rebuilt Electronic Music Studios (UTEMS) and splits his time between the Composition and Music Technology areas. Britton is currently the composer in residence at Red Sky Performance, as well as co-director of Cluster New Music + Integrated Arts Festival. His work at UofT seeks to expand the framework for research creation, opening new spaces for diversity in the creative applications of music technology.  

Caroline has spent the best part of 35 years in the arts, as stage manager, production and technical manager, education manager, project manager and producer in UK and Canada.

It has taken her into community arts and human circuses in South London; large parades with boats, cars and bicycles made of sticky tape; giant puppets in Portugal; too many events in soggy fields; touring round the Scottish Highlands; running two theatres for young people in Wales; enjoying fireworks and tugs (fortunately at the same time); Operas with elephants; Touring a multimedia theatre/opera production (Constantinople - Christos Hatzis + Gryphon Trio; What’s Classical? festival weekends; Producer with Luminato Festival over the years; Performances with 1000 performers (Apocalypsis - R Murray Schafer); Night time illuminated walks in Canadian National Parks (Banff and Rouge) (Illuminations); Multiple choirs on a pond (Maada’ooki Songlines – C Derksen) and Community presentations (Odaabanag-with music by Melody McKiver - Jumblies Theatre)

She has one simple, but passionate, aim - to introduce people, especially young people, to the live arts as creators and participants, as well as spectators.

David Harrington is the founder and artistic director of the Grammy-winning Kronos Quartet. For more than 40 years, the Kronos Quartet has pursued a singular artistic vision, combining a spirit of fearless exploration with a commitment to continually re imagining the string quartet experience. In the process, Kronos has become one of the most celebrated and influential groups of our time, performing thousands of concerts worldwide, releasing more than 50 recordings of extraordinary breadth and creativity, collaborating with many of the world's most intriguing and accomplished composers and performers, and commissioning more than 850 works and arrangements for string quartet.

Paul Wiancko has led an exceptionally multifaceted musical life as a composer and cellist. An avid chamber musician, Paul has performed alongside Midori, Yo-Yo Ma, Richard Goode, Chick Corea, Mitsuko Uchida, Nico Muhly, Max Richter, and members of the Guarneri, Takács, JACK, Parker, Kronos, Orion, and Juilliard quartets. His performances with Musicians From Marlboro have been described as "utterly transparent" and "so full of earthy vitality and sheer sensual pleasure that it made you happy to be alive" (Washington Post).

Chosen as one of Kronos Quartet's "50 for the Future," Paul's own music has been described as "dazzling", "compelling" (Star Tribune) and "vital pieces that avoid the predictable" (Allan Kozinn, journalist). National Public Radio recently wrote, "If Haydn were alive to write a string quartet today, it may sound something like Paul Wiancko's LIFT​," a 26-minute work featured on the Aizuri Quartet's Grammy-nominated album Blueprinting, one of National Public Radio's top 10 classical albums of 2018. Paul is a recipient of the S&R Foundation's Washington Award for Composition and has been invited to be composer-in-residence at the Caramoor, Twickenham, Newburyport, Portland, and Methow Valley Festivals. This year, Paul's music will be premiered by Alexi Kenney at Wigmore Hall, the Eybler Quartet at Banff Centre, Tessa Lark, Marina Piccinnini, and Michael Thurber at the Philadelphia Chamber Music Society, and the St. Lawrence String Quartet and James Austin Smith at Spoleto Festival USA, where he is the 2019 Bank of America Composer-in-Residence.

Sri Lankan-born Canadian Dinuk Wijeratne is a JUNO and multi-award-winning composer, conductor, and pianist who has been described by the New York Times as ‘exuberantly creative’, by the Toronto Star as ‘an artist who reflects a positive vision of our cultural future’, and by the Manitoba Chamber Orchestra as ‘a modern polymath’. His boundary-crossing work sees him equally at home in collaborations with symphony orchestras and string quartets, tabla players and DJs, and takes him to international venues as poles apart as the Berlin Philharmonie and the North Sea Jazz Festival.

Dinuk was featured as a main character in ‘What would Beethoven do?’ – the 2016 documentary about innovation in classical music featuring Eric Whitacre, Bobby McFerrin and Ben Zander. Forthcoming projects include new works for Grammy-winning baritone Elliot Madore (featuring Dinuk as pianist) and Grammy-nominated mandolinist Avi Avital, the test piece for the Banff International String Quartet Competition 2022, and conducting debuts with the Calgary Philharmonic and Qatar Philharmonic, Doha.

Dinuk made his Carnegie Hall debut while still a student in 2004 as a composer, conductor, and pianist performing with Yo Yo Ma and the Silk Road Ensemble. A second Carnegie appearance followed in 2009, alongside tabla legend Zakir Hussain. Dinuk has also appeared at the BoulezSaal (Berlin), Kennedy Center (Washington DC), Opéra Bastille (Paris), Lincoln Center (New York), Teatro Colón (Buenos Aires), Sri Lanka, Japan, and across the Middle East. Dinuk grew up in Dubai before taking up composition studies at the Royal Northern College of Music (RNCM), Manchester, UK. In 2001, he was invited by Oscar-winning composer John Corigliano to join his studio at New York’s Juilliard School. Conducting studies followed at New York’s Mannes College of Music, and doctoral studies under Christos Hatzis at the University of Toronto.

Dinuk has composed specially for almost all of the artists and ensembles with whom he has performed; to name a few: Suzie LeBlanc, David Jalbert, James Ehnes, Kinan Azmeh, Bev Johnston, Joseph Petric, Sandeep Das, Tim Garland, Ed Thigpen, Ramesh Misra, Barry Guy, Eric Vloeimans, Buck 65, DJ Skratch Bastid, the Gryphon Trio, the Afiara, Danel & Cecilia String Quartets, the Apollo Saxophone Quartet, TorQ Percussion, and the Symphony orchestras of Toronto, Vancouver, the National Arts Centre, Edmonton, Winnipeg, Buffalo, Illinois, Fresno, Asheville, Saskatoon, Windsor, Victoria, PEI, and Thunder Bay. Dinuk is the only artist to have served both as Conductor-in-Residence and Composer-in-Residence of a Canadian orchestra (Symphony Nova Scotia).

A passionate educator, Dinuk is committed to helping emerging and mid-career classical artists navigate the classical music industry in today’s increasingly complex, diverse, and globalized world. As a Creativity Consultant he serves private clients as well as students of the Banff Centre (Evolution Classical) and Toronto’s Glenn Gould School. His educational guide ‘Define Your Artistic Voice’ was downloaded 150 times from his blog within the first two days of its release. Dinuk also served as Music Director of the Nova Scotia Youth Orchestra for thirteen seasons. He is also the recipient of the Canada Council Jean-Marie Beaudet award for orchestral conducting; the NS Established Artist Award; NS Masterworks nominations for his Tabla Concerto and piano trio Love Triangle; double Merritt Award nominations; Juilliard, Mannes, & Countess of Munster scholarships; the Sema Jazz Improvisation Prize; the Soroptimist International Award for Composer-Conductors; and the Sir John Manduell Prize – the RNCM’s highest student honour. His music and collaborative work embrace the great diversity of his international background and influences.

www.dinukwijeratne.com

Composer in Residence Program during BISQC 2022 made possible with support by Dr. Gail Andrew.

The lecture series is generously supported by Ernie and Sandra Green.

Brandon Patrick George is a leading soloist and Grammy-nominated chamber musician whose repertoire extends from the Baroque era to today. He is the flutist of Imani Winds and has appeared as a soloist with the Atlanta, Baltimore, and Albany symphonies; the American Composers Orchestra; and Orchestra of St. Luke’s Chamber Ensemble, among others. He has been praised as “elegant” by The New York Times, as a “virtuoso” by The Washington Post, and as a “knockout musician with a gorgeous sound” by The Philadelphia Inquirer. His debut album was released by Haenssler Classics in September 2020. George has performed at Alice Tully Hall, Carnegie Hall, the Elbphilharmonie, the Kennedy Center, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Dresden Music Festival, and the Prague Spring Festival, among other venues. Before his solo career, George performed with many of the world’s leading ensembles, including the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, and the International Contemporary Ensemble. George trained at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music, the Conservatoire de Paris, and the Manhattan School of Music. He joined the faculty of the Curtis Institute of Music in 2021.