The Trio is named after the Gryphon, a mythical creature that is half lion and half eagle. The Gryphon is reputed to be a guardian of treasures and a symbol of the connection between psychic energy and cosmic force. Touring internationally since 1993, the Gryphon Trio is now recognized as one of North America’s premier chamber ensembles. The trio has released five celebrated recordings for the Analekta label, garnering multiple Juno nominations.

Jamie Parker, Annalee Patipatanakoon, and Roman Borys all teach at the University of Toronto Faculty of Music.

Visit Analekta at http://www.analekta.com/site/splash.e/

Yundi Li, Pianist
Courtesy of Universal Classics
Tuesday, February 22, noon

  Yundi Li was born in Chongqing, People’s Republic of China, in 1982. While a very small boy he displayed a remarkable sensitivity towards music and began to learn the accordion at the age of four. Just one year later he won first prize at the Chongqing Children’s Accordion Competition. When he was seven he started to learn the piano. Two years later and already filled with the ambition of becoming a professional pianist, he studied under Dan Zhao Yi, one of China’s most renowned piano teachers. In 1994 Yundi Li entered the junior high school attached to the Sichuan Music Academy. He is currently studying at the Shenzhen School of Arts.
     Yundi Li has gained numerous awards at international piano competitions including the 1995 Stravinsky International Youth Piano Competition and the 1998 South Missouri International Youth Piano Competition in the USA, the 1999 Liszt International Piano Competition in Holland, and the China International Piano Competition also in 1999.
     In October 2000 Yundi Li took part in the 14th Chopin International Piano Competition in Warsaw, Poland, where his outstanding performance was acclaimed by both the audience and jury alike. He was the first competitor in 15 years to be awarded a first prize. Yundi Li was one of the youngest gold medallists and was presented with a Polonaise Award. He was also the first Chinese pianist in the 70-year history of the Chopin International Piano Competition to receive such honor.

Universal Classics web site: http://www.universalclassics.com; Yundi Li: http://yundili.homestead.com/home.html.

Cellist Matt Haimovitz
Courtesy of ASCAP
Tuesday, February 22, 3 p.m.

Cellist Matt Haimovitz has established himself as one of classical music’s most adventurous artists, equally at ease playing the masterworks for his instrument in solo, chamber and concerto performances in leading concert halls as he is bringing classical music to new listeners in surprising new venues. 

Haimovitz has been “busily reinventing the classical recital for the new millennium,” commencing his 50-state “Anthem” tour on September 11, 2003, in celebration of living American composers. The “Anthem” album has appeared on numerous top 10 lists, including the Best classical Album of 2003 on Amazon.com. In 2004 the American Music Center awarded Haimovitz the Trailblazer Award, for his far-reaching contribution to American music. He struck a nerve in the music world with his innovative Bach Listening-Room Tour, taking Bach’s beloved cello suites out of the concert hall and performing them in intimate clubs and coffeehouses across the U.S., Canada, and the U.K. to great acclaim. These listening-room tours have been profiled on NPR’s  “All Things Considered” and “Performance Today,” and PRI’s “The World.”

Born in Israel, Haimovitz has been honored with the Avery Fisher Career Grant (1986) the Grand Prix du Disque (1991) and Diapason d’Or (1991), the Harvard’s Louis Sudler Prize (1996) and is the first cellist to receive the prestigious Premio Internazionale “Accademia Musicale Chigiana” (1999). He has been featured in numerous publications, including Newsweek, The New Yorker, People, Connoisseur, Gramophone, Strings and Strad magazines and has been the subject of full-length televised features on CBS’ “Sunday Morning with Charles Kuralt” and Germany’s ZDF, and has appeared on PBS’ “Salute to the Arts”, and “Nova.” 

Alongside his performing and recording activities, Matt Haimovitz is committed to teaching. He has been the head of the the cello program at the University of Massachusetts (Amherst) for the last five years, and in September 2004 he assumed the position of Professor of Cello at McGill University in Montreal. Haimovitz plays a 1710 Matteo Gofriller cello.

ASCAP website: http://www.ascap.com/index.html; Oxingale:http://www.oxingale.com

The Marilyn Horne Foundation (MHF) was founded in 1993 by world-renowned concert and opera singer Marilyn Horne. Its mission is to support, encourage, and preserve the art of the vocal recital through the presentation of vocal recitals and related educational activities across the United States and is the only national non-profit organization devoted exclusively to the vocal recital and classical song. Because of the diminishing recital opportunities for young singers and waning public interest in art song in communities throughout the United States, a situation due largely to the decrease in government funding of the arts, the diminishing of arts education programs in K-12 schools, and the entertainment industry's aggressive promotion of non-classical genres, and because she believes that preparing and performing vocal recitals was essential to her own development as a singer, she rallied the support of an initial group of equally concerned and committed individuals to begin the task of ensuring that young singers in this new millennium have the same opportunities she had, and that the vocal recital remains a viable and living art form in this country. 

Jessica Jones attended the Curtis Institute of Music, the New England Conservatory, and The Juilliard School. Her awards include a Sullivan Foundation Grant; First Place in theJenny Lind Competition; a Lotte Lehmann Fellowship, and Music Academy of the West.

With rich detail of color and gesture and an enormous sophistication of line and form, Stanislav Ioudenitch of Uzbekistan won the Nancy Lee and Perry R. Bass Gold Medal at the Eleventh Van Cliburn International Piano Competition in June 2001.

"A musician of aristocratic elegance and imagination, he makes everything fresh, finding revelatory facets and emotional dimensions without ever imposing anything foreign." 
The Dallas Morning News
 

Ricardo Cobo
Presented by AMPPR and Crossover Media
Closing Banquet
Thursday, February 24, 7:00 p.m.

With an unprecedented array of gold medals in major international competitions, Colombia-born Ricardo Cobo is recognized as one the world's supreme virtuosi of the new classic guitar generation. He gave his professional debut with the Orquesta Filarmonica de Bogota at age sixteen for a nationwide telecast audience of over nine million. As a college student he gave his astonishing debut to American audiences as the first Hispanic to win consecutive prizes at the Guitar Foundation of America International competition.

His busy touring schedule has taken him through New York's Carnegie Hall and Alice Tully Hall to Korea's Ho Ham Hall, Los Angeles' Ambassador Auditorium, Madrid's Teatro Real and Zaragoza's Palacio Real, to his native Colombia's National Library, Luis Angel Arango, among hundreds of others. 

Cobo's versatility can be heard in his award-winning solo recordings of classical and children's music, his orchestral and crossover recordings and in hundreds of credits for commercial releases world-wide. His diverse and innovative programming ranges from solo concerti with orchestra to historical chamber settings as well as Tango and Flamenco dance ensembles to Latin and world music concerts.

Ricardo Cobo's website is http://www.ricardocobo.com.